Pho

Our world tour of soup took us to Vietnam this week, and there is only one soup that can be considered the national dish in Vietnam, that, absolutely, is pho. We live in an area of the world where there are multiple pho restaurants around, which makes it hard to consider making something that is time consuming and labor intensive when for about $20 you can have a perfect soup in about 10 minutes. Something else about pho for me, is that being that I am not from Vietnam, I have no real sense of their ingredients or the way they build flavors beyond eating Vietnamese foods. So, I did what I always do, which is to suf recopies till I find one that is pretty good, well laid out and duplicatable. Then its down to getting the ingredients. Building pho is a process of creating flavor. You start with marrow bones and meaty bones (I substituted Ox tail for that part since there were none available.) First you boil the bones for about 5 minutes with the brisket, then you wash them all off and start again. As you are bringing a pot of water to the boil, you scale a couple of onions and gingers, and you roast the spices, including star anise, cardamom, coriander and cinnamon. Then, when the pot comes to the boil, everything goes in, the bones, the meat, the onions and garlic and the spices. That simmers for 3 hours before you pull and save the brisket, and strain the broth into another pot. (I saved the marrow bones because I love marrow on bread!) The broth is flavored with fish sauce, salt, and sugar till its just right.

To serve you have to get the rice sticks (noodles) softened and ready, which we just about got right, and you prepare the sides. In this case, bean sprouts, cilantro, korean peppers, and the thinly sliced meats (including some of the brisket). Then, of course, you need hoisin sauce, siracha and garlic chili to make the dish sing. It’s a truly great soup.