Southern Pho

Ingredients
Stock
5 lbs (or more) of beef marrow and knuckle bones
4-inch nub of ginger
1 large yellow onion (or 2 smaller ones)
3 cloves garlic
1 pound of inexpensive beef cut (such as round). This should be inexpensive because you will end up throwing it in the garbage
2 tablespoons of sea salt
¼ cup of fish sauce
1-2 inch chunk of yellow rock sugar
Stock spices (amount of spices are estimates, you don't have to be super accurate)
6 star anise pods, broken up with your fingers
6 whole cloves
(optional) 4 allspice berries
(optional) 1 black cardamom pod
4-inch cinnamon stick
Meats and Noodles (feel free to mix-match your favorite pho meat-stuff here)
16 oz beef flank steak or any flavorful cut with good marbling, thinly sliced
(Optional) 16 oz Vietnamese meatballs, labeled bo vien in Asian markets, frozen aisle, cut in half or quartered
(Optional) Beef tripe (cook briefly until tenderness. Excessive cooking will make it rubbery)
(Optional) Beef tendon (let it simmer in the stock until desired softness is achieved)
Garnishes
Bundle of cilantro, chopped
2 bundles of green onions, thinly sliced across the grain
Bundle of Thai basil
Bundle of mint
(Optional) bundle of sawtooth herb
Package (16 oz or more) of mung bean sprouts
2 packages of pho noodles, your choice, dry or fresh, wide or skinny
Onion, red or yellow, thinly sliced
Lime wedges
Hoisin sauce
Sriracha hot sauce (Rooster brand is the best)
Directions
Stock - Day 1
In the evening on the first day, take all of your thawed/refrigerated bones and put them into a stock pot that is about 20 quarts or bigger. Fill with water to cover the bones.
Bring to a boil and let it boil for 10-15 minutes vigorously, letting the impurities and protein-y bits leech out.
Dump out/discard the hot water and drain the bones. Wash off more of the fluffy brown impurities with water so that the bones are all clean. Also rinse out the stockpot and wipe off the bits stuck to the pot with a napkin.
Replace bones back into the stockpot. Refill with water. In a 20 quart pot, I fill it up ⅔rd of the way. In a 16 quart pot, I fill it up ¾ths of the way. This is pretty forgiving, so just fill it up enough so that you get a lot of stock, but not too much where liquid would slosh out if you jostled the thing.
Put the stove on low to medium low and let the pot come up to simmer, covered with a lid. You should see little glimmers of bubbles every now and then, but it should never boil (this is how you keep your stock clear and uncloudy.)
Let this go overnight, if you feel comfortable with letting the stove go while you're sleeping (I AM!). If not, maybe adjust the timing so all of this simmering happens during awake hours. You can probably get away with letting it simmer for as little as four hours. You can let it go for up to 12 hours or more, if you needed to.
Stock - Day 2
Soak your inexpensive beef cut in cold water for an hour or two, to pull some of the blood out (this is so the stock doesn't get too deeply colored by the blood protein)
Peel the skin off the onion, cut ginger lengthwise in half, and char both along with garlic cloves under the broiler, turning over so they are blackened. Pop the ginger and the onion right into the simmering pho stock. Go fetch the onion and ginger bits and taken them out of the stock after about FOUR HOURS OR SO, before the onion gets too mushy and disintegrates into the stock.
Lightly toast the spices in a pan until aromatic and brown. Put the spices in a loose left tea strainer or a cheesecloth along with garlic, and float the spice bundle in the stock. Maybe tie the cheesecloth or hook the strainer onto the side of the pot so that the bag doesn't sink to the bottom. You want to be able to easily fetch it. Take this spice bundle out AFTER TWO HOURS OR SO. It doesn't need to stay in there very long.
Take the inexpensive beef cut and pop it into the simmering stock pot for the next FOUR HOURS OR SO. After that, the beef will have given up all its flavor and will be pretty bland. You can brainstorm some other thing to do with it, but my aunt really says to just chuck it in the garbage. It's a sacrificial piece of meat and it sweetens the stock.
Toward the end of the simmering time (4 hours after putting in the onions and ginger), the house should be smelling amazing. This is when I add in the salt, fish sauce, and rock sugar, stirring and giving the sugar about 10 minutes or so to dissolve fully. Then, start tasting the stock and adjust the seasoning. Remember, it should be a touch or two saltier than you would like if it just were sipping soup. If you like your pho sweeter, it's okay to add a little more yellow rock sugar. If your stock tastes a little flat to you, try uncovering the pot and letting it continue to simmer and evaporate. Maybe the flavor just needs to concentrate.
If you find you get bored during this whole process, pass the time by skimming off 80 percent of the beef fat that floats to the top. There will be SO MUCH FAT. And I end up spooning some into little jars that I keep in the fridge for another recipe. I'd still leave a layer in the stock pot though, for flavor.
After 4 hours on day 2, or some other amount of time (remember, this is pretty forgiving), go ahead and take out everything --- the bones, the spices, the sacrificial meat, etc. So that all you have is just stock and the globs of beefy fatty goodness that have fallen off the bone.
Noodles (night before)
Soak the pho noodles overnight in water so they can rehydrate and soften. Keep them in water. This will make blanching them really easy and fast. (Though to be honest, I usually end up just zap my noodles in the microwave for a minute and call it good.)
Storing everything
After everything is done, I let my stock cool enough so that it's not going to kill everything in my fridge, I cover it, and then I store it in the refrigerator as we eat pho over the next few days.
The soaking noodles also get a place in the fridge
I wash herbs and sprouts, dry them, and leave them on stems, and store them in containers or plastic baggies in the fridge. It's good to keep the sprouts separate from the herbs because sprouts' shelf live is shorter.
I put all of my precut fresh ingredients in their own container for ease.
Composing individual bowls
(see the video at the end of this post)
Ladle some stock into a small pan and bring to a boil. Throw in some meatball halves. They are already cooked. They just need to be warmed up. One pho bowl serving is about three ladles.
Quickly blanch or microwave a handful of noodles so that they are soft but not mushy.
Lay raw slices of flank steak over the noodles, careful to spread it out evenly so it will get cooked evenly.
Top with a generous sprinkle of green onion and cilantro.
Top with a scattering of raw onion slices.
Top with other meat bits, if you prepared them.
Pour boiling stock into the noodle bowl, covering all of the exposed raw beef. It should cook before your eyes.
Before digging in, top with bean sprouts and fresh herbs, picked off the stem and roughly torn in half by hand. Squirt in some hoisin and hot sauce. Squeeze in some lime.