Pho is one of my favourite foods, it's delicious and perfect for any occasions. It is fairly simple to cook and prepare, the broth takes about a hour or so to prepare in order to release all the lovely flavours from the ingredients.
Today I'm going to attempt to show you how my mum cooks this amazing meal up.
This recipes feeds our family of six, but it can be altered to your taste.
Ingredients:
1 large chicken, we use a old hen 'old chicken' in Chinese terms XD
1/2 kilo of beef, we use the leg.
A chuck of ginger.
Star anise.
2-3 carrots
Salt
Chicken Stock powder or umami seasoning.
Onions.
Spring onions.
Coriander.
3 packets of pho or flat rice noodles.
First, boil the meat for a few minutes in a separate pan to get rid of the dirty stuff and kill off all the germs on the skin etc.
While that is boiling, boil the water for your soup.
While that is boiling, boil the water for your soup.
The huge pan we use to cook the soup :P
Once the meat has oiled for a few minutes and is washed, transfer it into the soup pan. Add the ginger, carrots, star anise and the tips of the coriander bunches.
The size of the beef we used. At this point the meat had started to soften so the seasoning is added. Salt and chicken stock powder. Instead of the chicken stock we used a small spoonful of Umami seasoning (available in Chinese supermarkets.)
Once the meat has fully soften, it can be taken out and shredded or cute into bitesize pieces.
The pho we use.
The pho only takes a few minutes to cook. Put the rice noodles into boiling water and turn the heat off when the noodles are soft but slightly chewy. Once you take it off the heat and you're not ready to eat yet, rinse the noodles in cold water to stop the cooking process (as it's still hot). When you are ready to eat, you can rinse the noodles again with boiled water. It's a long process but it's better than having soggy noodles.
Add the meat to the noodles. Add onions, spring onions and or coriander to your taste.
Pour in the soup and you're ready to eat. If you want a kick, add chilli sauce. A squeeze of lemon juice is really nice too.
I hope this has helped anyone who wanted to make pho but didn't know how. You can also substitute the chicken and beef with ox-tails which is also delicious.
If you have any questions, ask away and I will answer as soon as I can :)
