Phok'ing amazing Pho

I’ve had one miserable cold after the other since the beginning of December.  I had a couple of days over Christmas where I felt a bit better, but then going back to work at the beginning of January meant another couple of weeks of snivelling and whining that I thought I was dying.  Apparently I’m not very good at being ill.  All that I’ve really wanted to eat was hot, spicy clear soup.

I demanded that my husband took me out for pho, a traditional Vietnamese noodle soup.  We’re lucky that we have several really good Vietnamese cafes and restaurants nearby, which are family run.  But then I started thinking about my idea to try a new recipe every week this year and I figured it couldn’t be that hard to make my own pho.  It’s basically a slow cooked bone broth, with spices and noodles.

I read several different recipes to try and come up with the best one.  All of them seemed to be missing a few steps here and there, so I muddled through the best I could and then tried to write a more coherent one myself.

Ingredients for the broth

2lb beef bones, including bone marrow

2lbs oxtail

3 large white onions

Large chunk of root ginger

Small beef brisket

2 cinnamon sticks

1 cardamom pod

2 star anise

2 tbs cloves

2 tsp coriander seed

Orange peel

2 tbsp salt

2 tbsp fish sauce

2 tbsp sugar

 

• Bring a large pan of water to the boil, add the bones and oxtail and boil for 2-3 minutes.
• Remove the bones and oxtail, discard the water and thoroughly rinse the bones and oxtail with cold running water.
• Place the bones and oxtail in your largest stock pot and fill with cold water.  Return to the hob and heat.
• While the stock pot is heating again, peel the onions and cut in half.  Cut the ginger in half lengthwise.  Place these under the grill and cook until browned. 
• Remove the onions and ginger from the grill and trim any blackened parts off as these will make your stock muddy looking.  Add the onions and ginger to the stock pot.
• Take a clean pot, fill with water, a pinch of salt and bring to the boil.  Place the brisket in the boiling water and poach for 2 minutes. 
• Remove the poached brisket from the water and add to the stock pot, which should now be boiling.
• Simmer the stock pot for 1.5 hours.  During this time the stock will collect fat/scum on top.  Skim this off with a fine mesh sieve. 
• Once the 1.5 hours is up, remove the brisket.  This should still be in one piece.  Place to one side to cool.
• While the brisket is cooling, take a frying pan and dry fry the spices together to release the aroma. 
• Take the toasted spices and tie in a square of muslin and then add to the stock pot.
• Add the fish sauce, sugar and salt.
•  Add more water if you feel the stock pot needs it at any point.
• Take the cooled brisket, paint each side with fish sauce, season with salt and pepper, wrap and store in the fridge until required.

 

The secret to a good bone broth seems to be the longer you cook it, the better it tastes.  I left mine simmering for 4 hours after I had taken the brisket out, so 5.5 hours in total.  I added more water a couple of times and continued to skim fat or foam off it whenever it was required.  The house smelt amazing when this was cooking.  Then I turned it off, covered with the lid and left it to cool overnight on the hob.

 

The next day I skimmed off as much settled fat as possible and then strained the broth through a colander.  Set the bones and oxtail to one side for the moment*.  I sieved the broth through a muslin to remove any remaining sediment, before  placing in the fridge to cool, in the hope I could remove any more fat that I’d missed in the skimming process.  As it turned out, I’d actually got most of the fat and the remained amount was easily removed once it had solidified in the fridge.

 

Soup Ingredients

Rice noodles

Spring onions

Red chillies

Sliced brisket

Bean sprouts

Red peppers (if you want)

Lemon wedges

Thai basil (if you can find it)

Mint

Thin cut flank steak – sliced raw

sirracha

 

Layering up your soup bowl is a fairly personal choice.  I just gathered the ingredients together and ditched them on a serving platter on the table for people to help themselves.

 

The cooked noodles are placed in the bottom of the bowl and the boiling stock ladled over the top.  Each person then adds the other ingredients that they want afterwards.  The only tip that we had was to add the uncooked steak first to allow as much time as possible for it to cook through.

 

*I took the cooked oxtail and removed it from the bone and kept it back to make an oxtail ragu.  It was a delicious second meal and the meat was tender and tasty.