[Article] Finally, the pho thread. With a gui cuon bonus.

[gee]

Here's how to make some fucking awesome pho. I've made this many times and evolved it over the years, and here's the latest take on it. Secret is to use a pressure cooker to make the broth, and sear everything that goes in it.

Ingredients:

1 top sirloin steak
About 3-4 pounds of bones, saved from roasts etc.
3 onions, chopped
3 carrots
3 sticks of celery
2 tbsp fresh ginger
Pho spice, consisting of: 6 whole star anise, 6 whole cloves, 1 tsp whole black pepper, 1 tsp fennel seeds, 1 cinnamon stick
1/4 cup fish sauce
1/4 cup palm sugar (or turbinado, or brown in a pinch)
3 bay leaves
1 lemongrass stock
To serve: pho noodles, bean sprouts, thai basil, cilantro, hoisin, cock

Step #1 : Before they become illegal, get yourself a pressure cooker. They're awesome for making stock, curry, beans/lentils, etc. I use mine every couple of weeks.

Step #2 : Take your steak and trim it. Cut off any gristle/fat that's around the edge, and make yourself a nice steak rectangle - we'll be slicing this later. Slice up the trimmings, these are going in the broth.

Step #3 : Get your bones ready. I'm using the steak trimmings, a chicken carcass from yesterday, some beef bones left over from roasts, and a bunch of goat bones that a vendor at the local farmers market gave me.

Step #4 : Cut up your veg.

Step #5 : Get your pho spice ready.

Step #6 : Put a bit of canola or other high temperature oil in your pressure cooker (not olive oil!) and sear your bones in small batches. Put them aside in a bowl. When you're done, pour a small bit of water in the pressure cooker to deglaze it and dump that in with the seared meat.

Step #7 : Wipe the water out of the pressure cooker, put in fresh oil, and roast your pho spice. Keep stirring/shaking the pressure cooker, and wait for a really good smell and some snapping/popping to happen.

Step #8 : Throw in the vegetables and cook them until they start to brown, stirring every minute or so with a wooden spoon.

Step #9 : Add the bones and deglazing liquid back to the pressure cooker, along with the rest of the ingredients, and top it up with water. Bring it to a boil.

#10: Slap the top on the pressure cooker, set it to the highest pressure setting, and bring it up to a simmer. If you've got the stove set right, there should be a very faint hiss coming out of the pressure cooker. Silence is bad, having a steam whistle coming out of the pressure cooker means that the stock is boiling inside, which is also bad. You'll want to simmer for 1.5 hours.

(to be continued in next post)

 

[Domon]

WHERRRRRRRRRRRRRRREEEEEEEEEEEE IS THE NEXT POOOSST

 

[gee]

Now for the goi cuon - aka salad rolls.

Ingredients:

Rice papers
Pork chops
Pork marinade (see picture below for what I'm talking about)
Vermicelli noodles
Bean sprouts
Carrots

Peanut sauce ingredients:

1/2 cup peanut butter
1/2 cup hoisin sauce
1 tablespoon water
1 teaspoon cock

Directions:

Marinate your pork, and cook it in the toaster oven. Or real oven. Whatever you've got.

Slice your pork into thin strips, then slice these thin strips thinly. I think julienne is the right word, but I'm not exactly a proper foodie:

Boil your vermicelli. This stuff cooks pretty much instantly, within a couple of minutes. Douse it in cold water when it's done to stop it from cooking and sticking to itself.

Get your assembly station ready - there's also thinly sliced carrots, minced cilantro and bean sprouts laid out here. On the left is a white bowl full of warm water, all the ingredients are in front, dish for the assembled goi cuon are on the right.

And here's the process. #1 , dip the rice paper in the warm water and wait for it to soften. Take it out and lay it on the (cleaned) countertop.

#2 , load it up with ingredients:

#3 , roll one up homie:

#4 , done.

Another thing to do is make peanut sauce for it. I don't have pictures of the process. Just combine everything in a bowl, taste and adjust to your preferences.

 

[gee]

And back to the pho directions.

Freeze the steak in the freezer for about 15 minutes to make it easier to slice. Then slice it into thin strips, I find a bread knife is the best tool for the task:

It's been about 1.5 hours in the pressure cooker. Cool it down:

then dump everything in a colander over a large mixing bowl or pot, to separate out the solids:

Next, strain the broth through a fine mesh strainer back into a pot. I'm adding the lemongrass I forgot to add right now. Season to taste, then bring this up to a simmer.

Next, boil your pho noodles. Same rules as making the vermicelli, these don't take long to cook and wash them when they're one so they don't stick together and get all starchy.

Get your pho bowls ready. Put noodles in the bottom, top with shredded thai basil/cilantro, and put the thinly sliced beef on top of this.

Bring the broth to a strong boil, and ladle it into the pho bowls. The hot broth cooks the beef!

BAM. we've got pho.

 

[gee]

Throw in some hoisin, bean sprouts, cock... and

 

[kiwi]

That's an involved process.

 

[Mikeawesome]

yea pho is something i would just go out and get

 

[APRIL]

I enjoy cooking so this is added to my list of things to try.

 

[fly]

This is awesome.

 

[gee]

That's an involved process.

yea pho is something i would just go out and get

Bah. Making pho's not that much effort, probably less than what it takes to make hamburger patties and toppings. The only annoying part is tracking down proper pho noodles, pho spice, lemongrass, etc. which around these parts means a trip to an asian store.

Pho's a dirt cheap food to make too - it's made of cheap noodles, cheap veg, leftover bones/meat, spices, and water. I used a sirloin steak here, but inside round is fine. There's a reason it's pretty much the everyday cheap food eaten by most people in rural vietnam.

 

[fly]

Order from the Something Store placed!

 

[eileenbunny]

I will definitely be trying to make pho in the future. I can't eat it but Dan loves it and I love him. I have some questions:

Is there a reason you don't fire roast your onions prior to adding them? I thought traditional pho added this step.
Do you know of a substitute for the chinese barbeque spice packet you use? The red # 3 in there seems like a bad idea.

 

[gee]

I will definitely be trying to make pho in the future. I can't eat it but Dan loves it and I love him. I have some questions:

Is there a reason you don't fire roast your onions prior to adding them? I thought traditional pho added this step.
Do you know of a substitute for the chinese barbeque spice packet you use? The red # 3 in there seems like a bad idea.

You want a nice brown sear on the onions for some good maillard flavour, and you want to cook them fully so you don't get any raw onion flavour. At the same time you don't want to burn them so they turn black, which is awful tasting not to mention carcinogenic (PAHs = bad...) I find "cooked, seared nice but not black" is hard to achieve with fire roasting, but searing the veg in the pressure cooker with the stove on high and a bit of oil in the pot accomplishes this nicely.

Can't really suggest an alternative for the pork marinade. You could substitute the pork entirely for shrimp.

 

[eileenbunny]

You want a nice brown sear on the onions for some good maillard flavour, and you want to cook them fully so you don't get any raw onion flavour. At the same time you don't want to burn them so they turn black, which is awful tasting not to mention carcinogenic (PAHs = bad...) I find "cooked, seared nice but not black" is hard to achieve with fire roasting, but searing the veg in the pressure cooker with the stove on high and a bit of oil in the pot accomplishes this nicely.

Can't really suggest an alternative for the pork marinade. You could substitute the pork entirely for shrimp.

So you're worried about the carcinogenic properties of burnt food but not food dye?

 

[gee]

So you're worried about the carcinogenic properties of burnt food but not food dye?

PAHs found in burnt food are absolutely carciogenic - it's pretty much known on a chemical basis how they enter human cells and fuck shit up. Oh, and burnt food tastes bad.

I know red #40 is horrible, but never really looked into #3 - and after looking into that now, yeah, you're right. I'll work on a good pork marinade recipe to replace it.

 

[JAXvillain]

As a regular consumer of pho for 5 years from the joint across the street I had no idea it took this much effort. Mind=blown. I pay a little over $7 for a quart to go.

 

[fly]

As a regular consumer of pho for 5 years from the joint across the street I had no idea it took this much effort. Mind=blown. I pay a little over $7 for a quart to go.

It's kinda sad that you think that actually cooking food is a lot of effort.

 

[JAXvillain]

It's kinda sad that you think that actually cooking food is a lot of effort.

I'm in a transitional neighborhood still lacking a true grocery store. It's kind of sad you haven't grasped this yet.
I'm also in the middle of a burgeoning GSU campus that makes uber cheap good food for college students so I have no problem supporting these super tasty local eateries.

 

[fly]

I'm in a transitional neighborhood still lacking a true grocery store. It's kind of sad you haven't grasped this yet.
I'm also in the middle of a burgeoning GSU campus that makes uber cheap good food for college students so I have no problem supporting these super tasty local eateries.

Yeah, I care not to get into this with you again, but it's bad. I don't care what you say.

 

[JAXvillain]

Yeah, I care not to get into this with you again, but it's bad. I don't care what you say.