Make the pho beef ribs from Sắp Sửa

Ni Nguyen, the chef and owner of Denver’s Sắp Sửa, proudly serves non-traditional Vietnamese food, but never forgot that his mother told him, “If you open a restaurant, you have to have pho on the menu. It cures you when you’re sick. It keeps you happy when you’re sad.”

“Okay, I’m not going to do pho but I’m going to do something similar,” he responded. Nguyen’s pho-braised beef ribs are inspired by the oxtails that often go into pho broth, which you take out of the soup and serve as a dish that accompanies a bowl of pho.

Sắp Sửa has been making waves in the third culture food scene food scene and was recently named a Best New Restaurant semifinalist in the James Beard Foundation’s annual awards. Originally from Orange County, California, Nguyen and his wife and co-chef Anna, found themselves furloughed during the pandemic. He had been working at Nancy Silverton’s Osteria Mozza. “We chased the dream of opening a restaurant and Denver felt like the right place to open,” he explains. Coastal transplants had been pouring into the mountains at the time, bringing with them an openness to more global flavors.

Sắp Sửa’s bestsellers range from grilled pork shoulder and sweetbreads (especially in summer) to shrimp cakes consisting of chopped shrimp combined with egg whites and aromatics and garnished with fish sauce beurre blanc and trout roe. Nguyen was admittedly a little late to the restaurant industry, though he grew up in it. “My mom’s very first restaurant was a traditional fast casual Vietnamese restaurant serving pho and I worked as a cashier,” he tells me.

He eventually graduated from tending the cash register to portioning noodles, then dipping them into hot water in preparation for service, and finally, to learning his mother’s recipes. “I was 22 or 23 when she finally let me make pho,” he laughs. “I was such a bad kid. She didn’t trust me [to make pho].”

The pho broth that Nguyen’s mother taught him to make was clean and clear. “She placed a great emphasis on clean broth, and she would stand there with a ladle trying to skim all the fat off the top. Hers doesn’t taste as heavily spiced as other pho. It’s light and you can taste charred bones, the ginger, and the onion. She also uses less star anise than others.”

So how does Nguyen’s pho broth compare to his mother’s? “The one we make is heavily spiced! We’re using it to braise beef ribs and so we need lots of intense flavor to penetrate them.”

Nguyen also saves whatever fat is skimmed off, reserving it for beef fat toast. “We whip the fat with lime juice, fish sauce, and tons of the same herbs you’d normally see on a plate next to pho.”

And what goes into Nguyen’s ideal bowl of pho? “Rare beef, tripe, extra tendon, fatty brisket and lots of lime. My mom and I both can’t get enough lime.”

For the following recipe, “I would skim the fat and then season the braising liquid with fish sauce, lime and salt. It works as a pho ‘hack,’” says Nguyen

Pho suon bo—pho-braised beef ribs recipe

_{Pho beef ribs and chef Ni and Anna Nguyen (portrait credit: Casey Wilson)}

Serves 8-10

Ingredients

Ribs

6 beef ribs (1.5 lbs/680g per rib, or 9 lbs/4kg total)
6 tsp/36g salt
4 quarts/3.75l chicken stock
1 large white onion
1 large hand of ginger
2.65 oz/75g star anise (whole)
2.65 oz/75g cinnamon (whole)
2.65 oz/75g clove (ground)

Rib glaze

2 cups/0.5l braising liquid
4 oz/112ml oyster sauce
3 oz/84ml sambal
1 oz/28ml honey

Method

Ribs

1. Salt ribs overnight in the refrigerator, using 1 tsp or 6g of salt per pound, in a covered container (it does not need to be airtight, says Nguyen).
2. The next day, roast whole spices until fragrant or aromatic. This can be done either on the stovetop or in the oven. On a stovetop, it should take 2-4 min on medium high heat.
3. Combine the spices and blend (in a blender) until ground fine.
4. Char onion and ginger on the grill and add to roasting pan.
5. Preheat sauté pan to medium-high heat with neutral oil.
6. Coat ribs in spice rub (do not rinse off salt).
7. Sear ribs on three sides, excluding the rib side.
8. Pre-heat oven to 350°F/177°C.
9. Once browned, add ribs to roasting pan.
10. Cover with chicken stock (at least 75% of the ribs should be submerged).
11. Cover the roasting pan with a lid or with foil.
12. Braise ribs for 4 hours in a home kitchen, until tender but before meat starts to detach from bone. If preparing these in a restaurant, roast for 2.5-3 hours and then reheat each portion for pick up or service.

Rib glaze

1. Reduce the braising liquid down to ¼ volume.

2. Whisk together and brush over ribs before serving.

3. Serve with rice, or according to Nguyen, “a salad using all the herbs you get on the side with pho. We use Thai basil, cilantro, bean sprouts, lime segments, and Fresno chilis.”

Other applications for Nguyen’s pho broth

1. Whipping the beef fat into a spread for toast with lime juice, fish sauce and herbs like mint and perilla.

2. Reducing the broth to a glaze for burgers.

3. Stir in rice or mung bean noodles for a traditional bowl of pho after skimming the fat off the stock and seasoning the liquid with fish sauce, lime, and salt.

4. Using it as an aromatic sauce for steak.