Daring Cooks, Pho
Growing up as a Vietnamese kid in Bankstown I ate a lot of Pho. Either I was lining up at Pho An on a Saturday morning with my parents or lining up in the kitchen at one of our family gatherings as one of my Aunties scooped up fresh bowls for the kids from the huge pot that had been simmering away all afternoon.
As the years went on I noticed this huge batch of pho slowly becoming rarer and rarer at family events, I asked my mum why she didn’t make pho for these family gatherings any more and her answer was quite simple. She was too lazy to (very much a case of like mother like daughter).
Seeing Pho pop up as this month’s Daring Cooks challenge gave me a little thrill, I always thought that Pho would be an exhausting, time consuming exercise that would result in a sub-par results, luckily only one of these things were true! We were given the choice of Pho Ga (Chicken based stock) or Pho Tai (traditional beef stock with rare meat), I of course chose the beef option.
On request of Jaden of Steamy Kitchen who was this month’s guest host, the full recipe will not be duplicated in this post, but instead you can find it in full here, which in turn was adapted from Viet World Kitchen. Skimming through the recipe I was relieved to see that most of the ingredients would be easy to find, in fact most of them were a 10 minute walk away from my front door! The keys to a good bowl of pho are the bones you use for the stock, the spices and of course the condiments on top of it all.
Cloves, Star Anise & Cinnamon
Unlike Linda and her rose mis-adventures, finding the spices I needed was a cinch. While nosing through the unending spice row at the supermarket I noticed a red package containing “PHO SPICES” nestled amongst all the Chinese Medicine, although the rest of the package was labeled in Chinese a quick glance at its contents had me reassured. The spices are absolutely essential to the stock, although Jaden’s recipe called for a mesh bag to hold the spices I decided to simply scatter them throughout in my pot for maximum benefit.
I simply cannot eat Pho without Hoisin Sauce, and made sure to grab a fresh jar while in the shops. As a kid I couldn’t stand eating shallots, onions or any of the green stuff you typically find scattered in Vietnamese food, I’ll admit that even now I’m not too fond of these extras! My dream bowl of pho is simply tons of noodles, very thinly sliced beef all drenched in hoisin sauce and a generous squeeze of lemon! To avert my guilty conscience I occasionally scatter a few Vietnamese mint leaves and bean sprouts over my bowl…
Despite what I had initially assumed about the Pho making process, making the stock was generally quite straight forward. I threw approximately 2kg of beef bones (knuckle and shoulder), a few oven roasted onions. a knob of ginger as well as a generous handful of cloves, anise and cinnamon into a large pot and let the entire batch simmer. The process was not overly exhausting but it was definitely time consuming as the minimal stock simmer time was advised at 3 hours!
In the end I actually ended up making 2 batches of Pho as I was generally unsatisfied with my first attempt, and from my 2 attempts I came up with the following conclusions:
- The bones you use for your stock will make or break the final results.
Unable to find knuckle or shoulder bones (which contain the all important marrow!) I simply substituted in a bag of random beef bones obtained from my butcher, the resulting stock was thin and even my brother remarked that it was sadly unsatisfying. Trying again with 2 bags of marrow-ful bones resulted in a full fatty soup almost bursting with flavour. - Don’t be afraid to go spice heavy.
While cooking my 2nd batch of stock I was very satisfied with the colour and fattiness of my stock but found as time went on the stock wasn’t giving out the fragrant Pho scent that I remembered from my childhood. Halfway through simmering I decided to throw in more cinnamon and anise and the stock bloomed with the scent and taste that I remembered. - Simmer down or water your stock to the thickness you prefer.
Growing up as a kid most of the soups our family made were on the heavier, fattier side of things. While following the recipe exactly gave me a light fragrant soup, it was my 2nd attempt where I adjusted my bones to water ratio resulting in a beautifully dark stock which was much more to my tastes.
Many thanks to Jaden for hosting this month’s Daring Cooks challenge, it was a blast to finally conquer this beloved dish and gave me a chance to impress my mum! The recipe was generous enough for 2 people at dinner with enough left over to freeze for a rainy day.
Author
By Minh
Minh is a food, photography, tv loving girl who on occasion likes to think that she can cook. I can't hold my drink for what its worth and have an unhealthy obsession with green tea products.
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This article was written on 14 Oct 2009, and is filed under Daring Cooks, Vietnamese.
Current post is tagged
daring cooks, pho, recipe, Vietnamese
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is it me or did you double up on your content?
ack! That’ll teach me to edit images at 1am in the morning. Thanks for the catch
yummm… I can do one right now.. with siracha hot sauce and a glass of ca phe sua da….
Yum looks amazing. Love a good bowl of pho, and like you (until recently), yet to make my own. Looks delicious – and no onions? They’re so good!
Omg your soup looks so flavoursome and heady! *drool*
I can’t wait to try again with more bones. I’m just craving after yours now!
Love the colour of your broth! agree with the lack of pho scent, would definitely be more generous with the spices next time.
Great great job on your challenge. I love that you have the cultural background to make this dish so symbolic for you. Your appreciation for shines through in this post.
never tried pho but this is making me want to pop my own cherry and give it a chance
that broth looks sooooooo meaty *licks lips*
Great job! Your pho looks fantastic! I think I can smell it from here!
Your post reminds me so much of Pho I was had in Sydney. Really really delicious! Believe yours too! Anyway love the presentation and photos
Thanks for sharing!
Regards
Kris
Your photos are lovely! The beef pho looks so delicious. I will have to try it sometime.
Wow! I love how rich and dark your broth looks! It’s great to hear that it’s not as difficult as everyone thinks, pho is something I could seriously eat everyday.
Gorgeous photos and styling, I especially love the scattered spices. Thanks for the pho tips, I’m opting for extra spice next time.
First, congratulations on your nomination of Best Food Blog in the Asia-Pacific Nuffnang awards. Good Luck! Great job on making the long version of the Pho. Your broth looks incredible and the photos top notch.
Absolutely beautiful! All the photos, the pho, everything!
do you have to use beef can i use chicken? looks yummy want to try thanks abc