Vietnamese Beef Pho
Week 17 of the Cookbook Challenge, theme is Vietnamese. The only remotely Vietnamese recipe I have in any of my cookbooks is Rice Paper Rolls, which I did back in week 10. On a recent trip to Vietnam I fell in love with Pho – a traditional and popular soup with rice noodles and thin strips of beef that you can have for breakfast, lunch and dinner…and for only about 70c a bowl it’s not just the flavour you fall in love with! So I decided to attempt a Pho recipe I found on AllRecipes.
Ingredients
| 3.5L beef stock |
| 1 large onion, sliced into rings |
| 6 slices fresh ginger |
| 1 stalk lemongrass |
| 1 cinnamon stick |
| 1 teaspoon whole black peppercorns |
| 500g beef sirloin, cut into thin slices |
| 250g beansprouts |
| 1 bunch basil, leaves only |
| 1 bunch mint, leaves only |
| 1 bunch coriander, leaves only |
| 3 fresh green chillies, sliced into rings |
| 2 limes, cut into wedges |
| 500g dried rice noodles |
| hoisin sauce, chilli sauce and fish sauce to serv |
In a large stockpot, combine the stock, onion, ginger, lemongrass, cinnamon and peppercorns. I cheated a bit here – at my local Asian grocers I found a pack of spices for beef Pho soup, so used this instead of the lemongrass, cinnamon and peppercorns.
Bring to the boil, reduce heat and cover, simmering for 1 hour. Strain stock and keep hot.
Arrange beansprouts, basil, mint and coriander leaves on a platter with chillies and lime.
Put the noodles into a large bowl and cover with boiling water. Soak noodles for 15 minutes, or until soft. Drain.
Divide noodles among 6 large soup bowls and place raw beef slices on top. Ladle hot stock over noodles and beef and pass the platter of garnishes and sauces.
The soup ended up okaaaay, but not quite as good as I was expecting. The flavours in the spice pack were really strong and quite overwhelming so I probably didn’t need to boil for a whole hour. I’ll probably give it another go with a different recipe, but in the meantime I’ll be heading out to Box Hill or Richmond for my Pho fix!
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this looks great! nice job!
Great minds think a like! I like the look of the noodles you used instead of mine – they look like they kept their shape instead of falling apart after awhile. Shame it didn’t taste as great as your memory.