I’ve had it in restaurants and loved it. The other night Bourdain was slopping some up on his TV show. Who knows how to make good phở?
Are you inventing alphabets?
I’m partial to Cook’s Illustrated recipe for it. If you want the real recipe, it’s in March 1999’s issue. The trick of it is that it figures out how to make a decent broth without having to spend a week making it. It goes something like this:
8 oz package rice noodles
Broth:
5 cups chicken broth
3-6 cloves garlic, minced
some fresh ginger, minced. Maybe 2-3" piece
a couple cinnamon sticks
a couple star anises
Fish sauce - 2-4 Tablespoons
Soy Sauce - 1-3 Tablespoons
Sugar to taste, usually 1 T. or less.
Stuff to put in the soup:
- whatever meat you like, cut thin and sauteed. I usually use beef.
- bean sprouts
- jalapenos
- basil/mint/cilantro/etc
- green onions, sliced
- peanuts
- lime
- sriracha sauce (or whatever hot sauce you like)
- more fish sauce
- whatever else you can think of
Cook noodles according to package directions, divy up between 4 bowls.
Put all the ingredients for the broth in a pot. Simmer for 20 min or so to blend flavors.
Pour broth over noodles. Add whatever toppings you want. Yum Yum Yum.
Honestly for good traditional Pho you are better off finding a vietnamese place. real pho takes hours and hours of simmering beef bones and such to make a very flavorful and dense stock. Then the pre cook the noodles, pour the near boiling stock over the top of your rare beef and you add the contiments. The time it takes to make the stock itself usually lends better to large amounts.
Luckily I have at least 6 Pho places within 7 miles of my home :).
I haven’t gotten around to making it yet, but just last week I bookmarked this pho recipe, that looks pretty detailed and authentic.
The only part that takes a bit of time is, like with any soup, the broth. It’s really no more difficult than any other soup made completely from scratch.
I’m impressed that you spelled it right! Athena’s recipe looks like it would make something tolerably like phở, but I’m with BurnMeUp: leave it to the pros. However, there are a dozen phở within walking distance for me, with an average price of a dollar a bowl, so I’m bit spoiled.
The whole reason I want to make it myself is that there isn’t a Vietnamese restaurant anywhere at all close to here. You’re talking about hours of driving for a bowl of soup.
You don’t have to leave it to the pros. Making a broth ain’t rocket science. Just takes patience, time, and simmering (not boiling). It’s well worth it and broth always freezes well. The recipe linked to above will guide you fine. It’s a very straightforward broth.
I thought the same thing, but I’m in a town where I think I’m the only one who knows what Pho is.
However, a good friend of mine who lives in a pho-flush area asked me for a recipe for it several years ago. I gave him more or less the recipe I posted above.
A couple years after the fact, he mentioned to me that he made it all the time. I said “Oh, I’m glad it works for you. I know the broth isn’t up to real pho house broth, but I thought it did pretty well.”
He said “actually, I think it’s as good if not better than the pho places around here, and so do a lot of my friends who I’ve had over to try it.”
So there ya go. At least one person thinks it’s pretty damn good. I myself don’t have enough pho experience to compare it.
And now you make me want to make it. Maybe I’ll send Mr. Athena to the store…
It’s so weird - I actually have a recipe up in another tab right now.
N.B. this is from the anti-Sandra Lee forum at TWOP, and so the recipe uses several silly Sandra-isms (beef “juice,” “INto” and so on); the recipe author isn’t just on crack or something.
Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.
You’re right pulykamell. I don’t need a pro; I can make my own. In fact, I bet I can be the king of phở if I put my mind to it. Some day, you’ll all be able to boast that you knew that Phở King Scumpup before he was famous.
Well, I made the pho recipe I linked to earlier in this thread, and I can attest to it being very delicious. The broth was fragrant, clean-tasting, and flavorful. I picked some Thai bail, cinnamon basil, and Thai chiles from the garden. Bought some fresh bahn pho noodles in the Vietnamese neighborhood (I actually kind felt silly, walking by a half dozen pho places on the way to the grocery.) It was definitely worth the experience, and now I’m stuffed with pho. And there’s a buttload of broth left.