How to make "Pho" - Delicious Vietnamese rice noodles

“Pho” is one of the most famous dishes in Viet Nam. When we talk about “Pho”, we often talk about Ha Noi – the capital city in Viet Nam. In Viet Nam, “Pho” is so popular with reasonable price (25k Vnd/bowl = $1.00), that’s why people could have “Pho” as their breakfast or lunch (pretty much anytime they want). I used to have “Pho” as my dinner all the time when I was back in Viet Nam because it was healthy but not heavy.

Image link http://www.vietnamairlinestickets.com/upload/images/pho-hanoi.jpg

It is not hard to make “Pho”. However, you would not want to make it only for you but for around 5 to 10 people since it requires lots of different ingredients, steps and actually takes around 3-4 hours to prepare (I usually cook for 5 people in my family).

These are the ingredients you need (for serving 5 people):

-          1 kg beef bones (chop into 5cm pieces)

-          400 gr beef shank and 300gr beef flank (slice it as thin as you can)

-          50 gr ginger (grill it)

-          Onion (grill this too :P)

-          Dry onion (these are the little purple onions that you can find in Chinese or Vietnamese markets) (and again, grill this)

-          Anise, cardamom, cinnamon stick (just one of each should be enough)

-          Bean sprout, mints, green onions, lemons, chili

-          Rice noodles (I always buy fresh rice noodle in a Chinese market)

-          Salt, sugar, and fish sauce

Image link https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaxjAOGCVTYO0mlgSVESivySpaBzHF4K-2aDcN3Lj8QA86zHQJChxgTgck5bxNs9P7FO6mhXA5X5_TtSoa-L-3r7EIPtOOLBD82dDGdYRuYpbRHEPndmO2fbzraKfMVg0sDQhfOk8xJMOd/s1600/gia-vi-nau-pho.jpg

Cooking steps:

1.       Soup:

-          Put the beef bone into your biggest pot you have, then put water and boil it for 5 minutes then pour that away. This is just to double clean the bones before you actually cook it.

-          Repeat the first step. This time you put a soup spoon of salt into the pot and keep the heat really low for 2 hours at least (I normally leave it for 3 hours).

-          After 2-4 hours, you can put all the grilled onion, dry onions, anise, cardamom, cinnamon stick and fish sauce in the soup pot. Keep the low heat for another half hour at least.

-          Finally, check the taste of the soup and add salt or fish sauce to match your taste

2.       Beef shank and beef flank

Don’t worry about this too much because after you done the soup, you are pretty much done everything.

You just need to put it into a big spoon and deep it in the soup for 30 seconds.

3.       Putting it all together

Get a big bowl, put the rice noodle in, put the beef shank and beef flank on top, then the green onion (cut it into little pieces), and finally put the spill the soup over.

The bean sprout, mints, chili and lemon juice are served on the side.

To be honest, I rarely cook “Pho” because it takes a long time to prepare. I usually go out to Vietnamese’s restaurant for it. However, it’s fun to spend time and cook with my family. In fact, most of Vietnamese’s restaurants in Canada are owned by people from the South of Vietnam, that’s why the taste is kind of different from the North.

 I hope you guys like it! Try to cook it if you have time and let me how it turns out. If you have any question about the ingredients or the steps, find me on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/VietnameseFoodForHealthyDiet?ref=hl ) and make comment there. I promise will reply as soon as I can! :P

P/S I found this link on youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jfzQGqHQf2I that show you how to cook “Pho”.