Vietnamese Beef Stew (Bo Kho)
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Loading... - Chaiya Anurak
- 21 Feb 2023
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A traditional Vietnamese beef stew, Bò Kho is hearty, flavorful, and full of Southeast Asian flavors. It’s perfect for a comforting and satisfying meal any day. It is made with tender beef chuck, sometimes beef tendons, aromatic spices, and carrots, all slow-cooked to perfection in a savory tomato-based broth. Enjoy this dish with steamed rice, a toasty baguette, or rice noodles.
What is Bò Kho
Bò Kho is a hearty and flavorful Vietnamese beef and carrot stew. It is made with beef chucks (sometimes beef tendons), carrots, and Southeast Asian aromatic spices, all slow-cooked to perfection in a savory tomato-based broth. This stew can be made spicy or non-spicy.
Serve this delicious and comforting stew three ways: with a side of toasted baguette for dipping, with steamed rice for a more simple yet filling option, or make the stew soupier to ladle onto your favorite noodles.
What You Will Need
Beef Cuts — The best beef cut for Bò Kho or any stew comes from the hardest working part of the animal. This includes beef chuck (also known as chuck steak or gravy beef) and boneless beef shank (also known as banana beef because of its resemblance to a banana blossom). Beef chuck comes from the back and neck part of the animal. Whereas, beef shank comes from the thighs. These parts of the animal contain a lot of connective tissue that becomes tender with low and slow cooking.
If you like to use beef bones instead, you can use oxtail. Oxtail includes a good amount of bones and meat. The bone part of oxtail adds a richer flavor to the stew but you will have to do some digging for the meat. Keep in mind that oxtail can be expensive.
More traditional recipes also include beef tendons. Beef tendons require a much longer cooking process than beef chuck. If you are adding beef tendons, make sure to cut them into small pieces so they can finish cooking at the same time as the beef.
Carrots — The second star of the dish. You can also use parsnips, daikon, and potatoes.
Red Curry Powder — Red curry powder is a blend of hot red chilies, coriander, cardamom, and cumin. Other brands may have slight variations. This powder provides both flavor and a beautiful red color to the stew. You may skip the red curry powder, which can be spicy to some, and use annatto powder (no spice) or a milder chili powder such as ground paprika.
Salt and sugar — I’m using finely ground sea salt and granulated cane sugar.
Chicken bouillon powder and MSG — Optional, but these are our grandmothers’ and mothers’ secret that brings all the boys to the yard.
Garlic, shallots, lemongrass, ginger, Chinese cinnamon (cassia bark), and star anise — Our Southeast Asian aromatics.
Tomato Paste — To thicken up the broth and provide a vibrant red color. We’re not using the whole small can so freeze the rest for another recipe.
Oil — A little bit of vegetable oil or annatto oil to fry the aromatics to bring out the aroma and flavor. Annatto oil also provides more red color to the stew.
Water — The liquid for the stew.
Coconut juice — A small can in addition to the water. I’m using one 12 fl oz can of Coco Rico coconut soda. This gives the stew a more authentic yet subtle coconutty taste. For that reason, it’s optional, and you can replace with an additional 1½ cups water instead.
Cilantro and Thai Basil — Optional for garnish.
Dipping sauce — An optional dipping sauce of salt, ground black pepper, and a squeeze of fresh lemon or lime juice.
How to Serve Vietnamese Beef Stew (Bò Kho)
There are three ways to eat Bò Kho. My favorite is a small bowl of Bò Kho with warm toasted French baguette and dipping sauce on the side. Tear off a piece of baguette and dip it into the broth. Dip the beef chunks in the dipping sauce as a chaser to the baguette.
You can also have Bò Kho with steamed white rice, a simple but filling option.
You can also enjoy it with egg or rice noodles. Simply add a bit more water to the stew to make it soupier so that you can ladle the broth onto your favorite noodles. You will likely need to season the broth a little bit more with fish sauce. A popular restaurant menu item with Bò Kho and rice noodles is called Hủ Tiếu Bò Kho.
INGREDIENTS
2½ lbs beef (boneless beef chuck, ox tails, boneless beef shank, beef tendons)
3 large carrots
2 large stalks fresh lemongrass
2-inch knob ginger
1 teaspoon red curry powder
