Pho (Vietnamese Beef Noodle Soup)

In San Francisco, getting a delicious bowl of pho wasn't really that difficult. There was usually a nice little Vietnamese pho restaurant hidden away in an avenue or at a strip mall in the 'burbs. You could get a large bowl of pho dac biet or pho tai or any other variety for a fairly low price of $7-$9, and fall easily into a pho-induced afternoon coma after slurping past the halfway point of one of these bowls of beefy goodness.


In Wellington, it's a completely different story. First, there are less than a handful of restaurants that actually serve pho. Then, you usually get bland broth with chewy, overcooked beef slices or beef meatballs. I have yet to encounter tendons, tripe, flank steak or even rare steak in a bowl of pho in Wellington. COME ON! What's a bowl of pho without any of that?

So, in desperation, I decided to make pho at home...for the first time EVER. I figured if I paid $10-$12 a bowl at a Wellington restaurant for a very mediocre and bland bowl, I could just as well buy the spices and bones, and simmer on my own to find a good broth base and add to it my favorite ingredients.

This recipe did not disappoint. Tomorrow, I'm off to the butcher's for offal and tendons!

Pho (Based on Into the Vietnamese Kitchen by Andrea Nguyen's recipe)

BROTH
3 small onions, halved, do not remove skin
2 medium sized nubs of ginger, halved lengthwise, do not remove skin
2.5-3 kg or 5-6 lbs of good beef bones, preferably leg and knuckle
1 kg of beef flank, with fat and sinew
6 quarts of water
1 package of Pho Spices [2 cinnamon sticks, 1 tbl coriander seeds, 1 tbl fennel seeds, 6 whole star anise, 2 cardamom pods, 6 whole cloves - in mesh bag]
3 tablespoons rock salt (halve if using regular table salt)
1/2 cup fish sauce
2 large chunks of yellow rock sugar (about 3 oz)

NOODLES AND ETC.
Rice noodles (dried or fresh)
Sliced flank from broth
Handful of cilantro, thai basil and green onions, sliced on the diagonal
1 lime, cut into wedges
1 large jalapeno pepper, sliced
1 big handful of mung bean sprouts
Hoisin sauce
Sriracha hot sauce

Heat oven to broil. Coat onion and ginger halves with vegetable oil and place on cookie tray. Put in oven for 10 minutes and turn to broil for another 5. There should be a nice char that forms on the onions.

Boil water in 2 large pots, one with 6 quarts of water in a soup pot (with about 4-5 inches of space at the top) and the other in a large pot (no need to measure water). Parboil bones and flank meat in unmeasured pot first for 5 minutes, dump water out and place bones into the pot with 6 quarts of simmering water on medium-low. Remove scum that floats to the top.

Add fish sauce, rock sugar, ginger and onions. Remove any additional scum and fat that rise to the top. Simmer for 2 hours.

Add spice pack after 2 hours. Keep simmering for another 3-4 hours. Keep skimming the scum! You'll be amazed at how much scum you'll skim during the entire process.

Cook rice noodles by placing dry noodles in a large bowl. Cover with boiling water for 10-15 minutes. Make sure to stir the noodles to prevent sticking.

Prepare cilantro, basil, bean sprouts, lime wedges and jalapeno slices on plate. Squeeze some sriracha and hoisin sauce in a ramekin. Once noodles are ready, place them with a few ladle-fulls of broth in a soup bowl. Slice the flank steak against the grain and place them with a few scallion pieces in the bowl. Enjoy!

EDIT
Here are a few tips for a better broth:
- After letting your bones and broth simmer all day, refrigerate and scrape off the fat from the top of your pot. Your broth will be less fatty.
- Keep skimming scum as much as you can. You'll have a beautifully clear, amber broth if you first do the parboil and then do as much skimming as you can.
- Add as much fish sauce and salt to your broth as you see fit. Even if it feels like it's a lot, it's probably not as much as you'd get in a restaurant.