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Pho Recipe

By Riana Lagarde Or if you are brave, and have an exorbitant amount of time, you can make your own.  The best place to buy Asian ingredients is the Paris Store, right there on that corner of Belleville. Its huge and packed with specialty items from distant lands. I like to wander down the aisles and just randomly buy things Japanese, Korean, Chinese or ? --I cant read the labels.   My husband enjoys getting mystery desserts that look like neon green swamp things or pink balls of coconut flavoured who knows what. If you want to make your own Pho, this is your first stop to shop. Making real Pho is a long and arduous  experience, but your house will smell so good! Your second stop is your local butcher to ask for some bones!

 

 

Pho recipe that I use, it’s a combination of two or three recipes that I have found for Pho

 

 

For broth (about 8 bowls):

 

2 gallons cold water (approximately)

 

2 kilos beef bones with marrow

 

1 kilo oxtails, cut into 1 1/2 to 2-inch pieces and trimmed of fat

 

1 kilo beef back ribs

 

1 medium onion, peeled and charred in oven under broiler

 

1 piece of ginger, unpeeled and charred with onion

 

5 pieces star anise

 

3 cinnamon sticks

 

5 dried cardamom pods

 

7 whole cloves

 

1 teaspoon fennel seeds, lightly crushed

 

3 bay leaves

 

1 tablespoon black and white pepper (whole kernel)

 

1 ounce licorice root (optional)

 

1/3 cup nuoc mam (Vietnamese fish sauce)

 

1 kilo celery, washed and trimmed at base, cut into 2-inch pieces

 

2 teaspoons salt

 

3 small rock-candy crystals (optional, sometime I use sugar or brown sugar)

 

 

To serve:

 

2 packages 1/4-inch wide dried rice sticks (banh pho)

 

500 g filet mignon, trimmed of fat and very thinly sliced (easier to do when you freeze it)

 

3 scallions, thinly sliced

 

1 bunch of cilantro

 

1 medium onion, sliced paper-thin

 

Freshly ground black pepper

 

 

Condiments:

 

4 fresh red or green chilli peppers, sliced

 

3 limes, cut into wedges

 

1-1/2 cups mung bean sprouts

 

1 bunch of fresh mint, separated into leaves

 

1 bunch of Thai basil, separated into leaves

 

1/2 cup hot chile sauce…did mention that I love sriracha?

 

1/2 cup hoisin sauce

 

 

1. Rinse the bones with cold water and soak for 2 hours in a pot. Drain.

 

 

2. Place the oxtails, beef back ribs and beef bones in an extra large stockpot. Add water to cover and bring it to a boil. Simmer for about 15 minutes. Drain. Rinse the pot, bones and meat.

 

 

3. Bring the bones and meat back to the pot and add water to cover. Bring to a boil, skimming the surface to remove the foam until it ceases to rise. Add 2 quarts more cold water and bring back to a boil. Skim off all of the residue that forms on the top. Set the heat to low and simmer for one hour.

 

 

4. Tie the charred onion, ginger, star anise, dried cardamom, cinnamon sticks, cloves, fennel and bay leaves white and black peppers and licorice root in a sachet d'épices, using cheesecloth or a big tea ball.  Add the spice bag in the simmering broth. Simmer for 1 hour.

 

5. Add celery and simmer for another hour. Remove oxtails and back ribs, allow to cool and pull the meat away from the bones and reserve it. Slice the rib and oxtail meat into small chunks. Set aside.

6. Simmer stock for one more hour, then remove and discard all of the bones. Strain the broth through a strainer lined with a cheesecloth into a clean pot. Add the fish sauce, salt, black pepper and rock-candy crystals, and bring the broth to a boil. Reduce heat to low and simmer the broth. Broth can be prepared ahead to this point and refrigerated.

 

 

7. When ready to serve, bring  a large pot of water to a boil. Drop the noodles in the boiling water, cook for 10 seconds and then drain immediately.

 

 

8. Combine the sliced scallions, shredded cilantro and sliced onion. Set aside.

 

 

9. Divide noodles in large soup bowls. Top the noodles with meats including the raw sirloin, (it will cook with the heat of the broth). Ladle hot broth over the meat and noodles. Garnish with the scallion mixture. Serve with the sides on a plate and each person does up their Pho their own way.

 

 

Bon appétit!

 

By Riana Lagarde

 

http://frenchtoastfrance.blogspot.com/

 

 

P.S. If you are at a really ethnic Pho restaurant and your husband orders some crazy weird soup of the day and the waiter tells you ‘oh, no, that soup not for you’, then that soup is really not for you! Darling husband insisted on getting the soup of the day (written on the wall on a piece of scrap paper) and it tasted like ass! Because he is French and so polite he had to eat it all!