Vietnamese Beef Stew (Bò Kho)

Flavors from all over Asia (ginger, lemongrass, five-spice powder, garam masala, fish sauce...) spice up this delicious, aromatic, meaty stew.

Course Main Course

Cuisine Vietnamese

Servings 4 to 6

Ingredients

1 stalk lemongrass, end trimmed off, dry outer leaves peeled away and the soft inner core minced
3 cloves garlic, minced
2 teaspoons fennel seeds
a 1-inch piece of ginger, peeled, crushed and finely minced
2 shallots, finely minced
1 teaspoon fresh ground black pepper
2 teaspoons garam masala
1/8 teaspoon cayenne
1 teaspoon five-spice powder
3 tablespoons fish sauce (see Kitchen Notes)
1-1/2 tablespoons sugar
2 pounds chuck roast, trimmed of fat and cut into one-inch cubes
canola oil
2 medium onions, peeled and sliced thin
2 jalapeño peppers, topped, seeded and coarsely chopped
1-1/2 cups low-sodium beef stock (see Kitchen Notes)
1 to 1-1/2 cups water
2 tablespoons soy sauce
2 tablespoons tomato paste
1 bay leaf
1 whole star anise (see Kitchen Notes)
1 pound carrots peeled, trimmed and cut in half-inch slices on the diagonal
a good baguette

Instructions

Place the lemongrass, garlic, fennel seed, ginger, shallot, ground pepper, garam masala, cayenne, five-spice powder, fish sauce and sugar in a big ceramic or glass bowl. Stir, then add in the chuck roast. Stir it all with your hands until every piece is coated. Cover and refrigerate for 30 minutes.
After 30 minutes, take the beef out of the fridge. Heat 1 tablespoon canola oil in a nonstick pan. Over medium-light heat, add the thin sliced onion and the diced jalapenos and saute for about four minutes. Then move the onion and pepper mixture to a deep heavy pot or dutch oven.
Add another tablespoon of oil to the pan. Working in batches, brown the beef. I usually do this in three batches. Each piece should be nicely browned on all sides; add more oil if needed. As the pieces brown, add them to the pot. Scrape all the little spice bits into the pot too. If any crust forms in the pan, deglaze it with a little stock or water and add that to the cooking pot too.
Then pour in the beef stock, water, tomato paste, and 2 tablespoons of soy sauce. Add the bay leaf and the star anise. Bring the liquid to a boil, reduce the heat to a gentle simmer, cover, and cook for about 90 minutes. Check occasionally.
After 90 minutes, add the sliced carrots, stir gently (see Kitchen Notes), cover again and cook about 30 minutes more.
Check the beef and the carrots. At this point, each should be very tender, and ready to serve.
Serve in a soup plate or shallow bowl, with baguette and butter, a leafy salad with a simple dressing and a crisp white wine. We had a muscadet that was just the thing—clean, crisp and refreshing. This also would be terrific with a dry cider over ice.

Kitchen Notes

Star anise. Use whole star anise for this dish, not fragments. When you stir the pot, be gentle—you don’t want to break up the star anise. If you do, you’ll have to fish out all the little seeds and pieces before serving—those things, chewed on their own, are just too much.

Watch out for the sodium. When using beef stock, if you are not using your own homemade, be sure to use low or no sodium, and even then be cautious. Soy sauce and fish sauce are each sodium bombs in and of themselves.

Fish sauce. When choosing fish sauce, you will see there are many, many brands out there. As a rule of thumb, don’t buy a brand that comes in a plastic bottle. Buy the ones packaged in glass.

Some more traditional versions of this use turnips and even mooli (which is more familiar to us in the United States under the name daikon). We just like this with carrots, lots and lots of carrots. Indeed, one of our family members, who shall here go unnamed, hates carrots in every form except this one.