Vietnamese Pho
Ingredients
For the beef stock (Broth)
3kg of beef bones (with some meat on the bones)
2 kg of Sirloin steak, brisket or rump
6 litres of water
Pho Spices
1 cinnamon stick
7 star anise
1 tablespoon of Coriander seeds
9 whole cloves
4 cardamom pods
1 tablespoon of fennel seeds.
- Dry roast the above spices in a pan for about 1 minute (this will release the oils of the spices)
- Place the spices in a mesh bag or muslin
100g of ginger. Cut lengthways in two.
2 large onions cut in two.
Using a roasting tray, sprinkle a tiny bit of rapeseed or sunflower oil to the ginger and onions. In a 200*c pre heated oven and grill, add some ice cube to the bottom tray and place the ginger and onion in the oven.
Cook for about 15 minutes till the onions and ginger char. See below
100 ml of fish sauce
1 tablespoon of palm sugar or molasses
3kg of rice noodles
1 teaspoon of salt
To serve
A bunch of Coriander, Basil, Mint and Lovage
2 limes quartered
Hoisin sauce
Hot chilli sauce (I used Tabasco sauce)
Chopped Spring onions, Chillies,
Optional ( bean-sprouts, carrot ribbons, Bok Choy or your favourite vegetables)
Method
- In a stock pot or deeper saucepan, place the beef bones with 2 litres of water. Boil on a high heat for 15 minutes. This enables you to get rid of the impurities of the bones. (i.e fat, scum from the blood etc)
- Discard the water and run the bones under cold water and wash the saucepan.
- Place the stock pot with 4 litres of water, the bones, charred onions, ginger, sugar, fish sauce and the spice bag and place on a medium heat for 3 hrs.
- Add salt to taste.
This stock will serve 12 people easily. You can freeze the stock and use at a later date.
Using a small saucepan on a low heat, strain about 500ml of stock , add your thinly sliced Sirloin (which I used in this instance. You can use whatever meat you prefer).
Add a handful of fresh rice noodles, chopped chillies, coriander, basil, lovage, mint, spring onions.
Take the saucepan off the heat and pour the soup into a bowl. Just add some fish sauce and squeeze some lime juice and voila your mouth explodes with flavours.
Then I added the meat off the bones
This is after I added the fish sauce, tabasco sauce, hoisin sauce and lime juice.
Enjoy!