Similar to always ordering croissant at new bakery, ordering egg tarts at new dim sum restaurants, I always order beef pho at new vietnamese restaurant. It is always the first dish I want to try and see how good the restaurant is. Its sweet and warm broth from various beef parts, and even richer fragrance, flavor with the thai basil, jalapeno garnish, is always healing a long day of work or social events!
Pho is not hard to make, it just takes quite a long time. Making soup with chinese, korean, vietnamese recipe really showed me their differences. Chinese or cantonese soup has a various combo of ingredients, from seafoods (dried scallop, dried shrimps, etc.) to other protein (pork short ribs, hen, etc.). Korean has different ways of cooking rich, thick, white broths, either beef or chicken. Vietnamese goes for flavor origins, and usually have clear broth.
QUICK TAKEAWAYS
- Pho soup is usually clear, so it will cook without lid, unlike seolleongtang’s thick, white broth cook with lid
- charring onion, ginger slices and dry spice bring out the flavors
- simple ingredients, meat, bone, sugar, salt, fish sauce will bring enough umami to the soup
RECIPE
- 2 full onion
- a few ginger slices
- a few star anise
- 1-2 cinnamon sticks
- a few cloves
- a few black cardamon/tsaoko
- a tsp coriander
- a few green cardamon (mainly for chicken pho)
- chicken pho: chicken bones
- beef pho:
- bones: ox tail, knee bone, neck bone
- thick meat: beef brisket, beef flank, beef short ribs
- thin beef slices
- rock sugar
- fish sauce
- salt
- vermicelli noodle
- been sprout
- thai basil
- chili pepper slices
- half lime/lemon
STEP 0: let all meat & beef bone sit in water for a few hours to get rid of more blood
STEP 1: cook pho materials (chicken bone, ox tail, ox bone, beef brisket, etc.) in cold water till boil for 5-10mins, discard water, rinse and clean meat & bones
STEP 2: char onion, ginger slices, or toast in oven, remove burnt part; toast star anise, cinnamon sticks, cloves and coriander on pan with oil / toast in oven
- do not cut the root of onion so hopefully the onion would not fall apart during long time cooking
STEP 3: put all ingredients in a pot with 4-5L water, add a few rock candy, a few tsp salt, bring to boil and then turn to medium heat, cook for 3-4hours without lid
- if making chicken pho, cook the chicken bones in pot and sous vide chicken meat so they are not bone dry in the soup
STEP 4: when pho is almost done, taste to add salt and fish sauce as needed
STEP 5: in another pot, cook vermicelli noodle, blanch been sprout or other veggie of choice
STEP 6: place noodle in a bowl, thin beef slices, half-cooked bean sprout, thai basil, jalapeno slices in a bowl
STEP 7: add in bone soup and squeeze in lemon/lime juice as needed
READY TO SERVE PHO with sides (thai basil, chili pepper, lemon, etc.)!
RESOURCES
