So I decided to make some Phở.
If you're interested in the chronology of events that led to this culinary adventure, I've been reading Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain. I'm really enjoying the book and have been watching his show No Reservations. Apparently Phở is his favourite dish and he really hyped it up and made it sound good, so I wanted to see what the fuss was about.
Phở is Vietnamese soup. It's hot, it's sour, it's sweet, it's everything.
Turns out there's a few places to get some Phở around Halifax. I looked at reviews and decided Indochine on South Park was a good place to start. First off, their Bahn Mi sandwiches are fucking incredible. I had never had one before, and don't give a flying fuck if they're authentic or not. Amazing.
Anyway, the Phở was pretty good too, very clean and a variety of flavours. Naturally, I wanted to try making it. I looked up some recipes and the process seemed very intriguing. Every recipe seemed to follow the same basic steps. I decided to use this one because it was the highest rated.
Starts off by charring a halved onion, skin and all, and a big hunk of ginger, halved as well, under the broiler, then boiling that in the broth. Odd, but followed instructions. I used some stewing beef shanks with plenty of marrow to boil for the broth instead of bones cause they were cheap as fuck. It also called for the use of a cheesecloth to make a packet for all the spices. I just threw the fuckers in, including some black peppercorns that weren't in the recipe, cause apparently you can't buy cheesecloth anywhere these days. I figured out why cheesecloth was suggested later.
So I boiled up the shitty beef shanks with the charred onion and ginger. The recipe was quite adamant to skim off all the scummy shit that rises to the surface during boiling, this is where the cheesecloth would've been nice cause I had a hard as fuck time skimming out the shit and leaving in the good spices. I managed though. After the boiling and what not, I strained it out well and let it cool. I skimmed off most of the fat that solidified cause I wanted it to taste clean, complex and eventually hot as fuck.
I used bean sprouts, mint, cilantro, green onion, minced green chillies and lime to garnish it, along with some hoisin and a load of Sriracha hot sauce. In the bowls I used thin rice noodles, some shredded beef cooked from the shitty shanks and extremely thin sliced raw round steak, which was eventually cooked by the boiling broth I ladled over it.
The result was fucking awesome. Better than Indochine and will eventually be the best bowl of Phở in the city once I perfect it. I didn't really stick to the measurements at all in the recipe, I did my own thing cause I made a smaller batch and like things "over the top". I put in a little more of everything called for than the recipe stated, plus added black peppercorns for some kick. Next time I'm going to use a fucking gigantic piece of ginger and maybe try out throwing in a bulb of garlic. I like garlic.
