What's up Mother Pho-ker

What is best in life?

The open step. A fleet horse. Falcons at your wrist, and the wind in your hair.

WRONG!

CONAN! What is best in life?

A hot bowl of pho.

YAHHHHHH!!! That is good. That is good.

Welcome to my new food blog. Here I'll be posting my creations, whether they be of my own mind or my take on a tried and true recipe.  

Pho has a special place in almost every Vietnamese person's heart, whether it's the clean clear chicken pho of northern Vietnam or the deep dark beef pho of Saigon.  It can be eaten day or night, for breakfast, lunch, dinner or as a 2am drunk as hell from the club meal.  Pho can cure the worst of hangovers and induce memories of days gone by sitting at the family table with a steaming bowl in front of you.

It is the ultimate comfort food.

Recipe makes 6-8 Xe Lua sized bowls of pho (depending on your definition of XL)

For the Broth:

6lbs of beef shin bones

1 lb of beef shank

1 lb of rough flank

1 lb of thinly sliced rib-eye

2 medium sized yellow onions

1 4 inch piece of ginger

5 star anise 

6 cloves

3 inch piece of cinnamon

1 oz chunk of rock sugar (about 1 square inch)

4 tbsp fish sauce

1.5 tbsp salt

For the bowls:

Pho noodles - either dried or fresh, enough for 6-7 bowls (2 one lb packages)

Limes

Bean Sprouts (can be served slightly steamed or raw)

Thai Basil

Saw tooth herb

Cilantro - diced

Green onion - diced

Sriracha

Hoisin Sauce

First things first. Turn on some football. 

In a large 12qt pot (I used a much smaller one, the bigger you can get the better) add your beef bones and cover with water. Bring it to a boil and parboil the bones for 3-4 minutes to release the impurities from the bones, which would make your broth cloudy; and ain't nobody want that.

While the water is coming to a boil, char the onions and ginger over a flame.  If you're in an apartment with electric stoves, use a portable camping stove.  For maximum smokey-ness, try charring the onions and ginger over a charcoal fire.  Once you get a nice char, rinse off any flakey or black bits from the onions and ginger.  Charring the onion and ginger adds a subtle sweetness and smokey note to the broth, and definitely should not be skipped.

In a dry pan, toast the star anise, cinnamon and cloves to release the flavorful oils trapped within. If you have the time, clean your stove top.

Once the bones have boiled for a few minutes, drain the pot and rinse the bones of any stuck on gunk. Then make sure you clean the pot well before placing the bones back in.

I use this little metal mesh ball to hold all the spices.  It takes up some room in the pot, but makes it a lot easier later since you don't have to fish out the little cloves.

Add 6 quarts of cold clean water to the pot, a long with the onions, ginger, spices, salt, rock sugar and fish sauce.

Now this next step is totally optional, and when I say optional, I mean mandatory.  Most recipes have you just add the raw meat to the pot of water, whether it's brisket or flank.  I wanted to boost the flavor of my broth so I did a quick sear of the shank and flank before I added it to the pot. 

Now comes the fun part! Waiting! WOO!  Let the broth simmer for as long as you can stand it, but at least 4-5 hours to let the flavors come together.  During this time, skim off any gunk that floats to the surface for dat clear broth.  There will be a lot of beef fat from the bones that will come to the surface and you can skim it off if you'd like.  I prefer to leave the fat layer until the very end, as I feel it makes the broth much beefier than if you had skimmed off all the fat early on in the cooking process.

When the broth is almost done, fish out the meat, let it cool and slice into bite sized pieces.

Finally, cook the noodles per package instructions and assemble the bowls.  I elected to use rib-eyes here for my "Tai" but most recipes call for eye of round.  I find rib-eye much more flavorful due it's intense marbling. It may be more expensive, but come on, are you poor? Ladle on the hot broth and serve!  

The aftermath.

Thanks for reading all the way to the end, please comment if you'd like, or not, whatever, I'm not a cop.

Until next time! 

TL;DR: New York Matinee called it a playful yet mysterious little dish. You'll love it.