Pho?

Living on the Pacific Rim of Fire we have a lot of Asian food to discover here in Portland. One of our favorites is PHO, a beef broth- noodle Vietnamese soup that will warm your soul. My favorite time to eat pho is when it's all rainy and overcast and you want nothing more then a nice big bowl of soup to warm you up. I have to admit I wasn't initially excited about pho when a friend of mine who was visiting town demanded we eat pho before he left town. My friend, Jason is from Alabama but lived close to Bayou La Batre, which has a lot of Vietnamese people and he likes to eat the soup there. Well, just driving around Portland you will notice a lot of little restraunts with the PHO in the title i.e. Pho Hung, Pho Van, Pho Thien, Pho Green, Pho Jasmine etc...

You can make Pho as crazy or tame as you like. You can get vegetarian Pho (which i have never tried) or go with the often titled "Super Bowl" which includes thin cuts of flank steak, sirloin, brisket, tripe, beef tendon, meatballs and honeycomb tripe. If you have texture issues when you eat you may want to leave out the tripe and tendon. I have to admit Kayla and I usually go with the Super Bowl most of the times which usually runs about $7-8. One of my favorite parts is how you get to customize your soup to your liking. As you wait for your soup to be served they will bring a plate to your table with lime wedges, asian basil, cilantro and bean sprouts and sliced jalapeno peppers. When your soup comes you can add all or none of these "additions" as you see fit. You can also sweeten up the broth with Hoisin sauce or make it nice and spicy with Cock Sauce (Sriracha a Thai hot sauce) and chili oil. I like to get a good sweat going when I eat pho!

So, as I often do when I like a certain food I have to try to replicate it in the Kitchen. This past week I made an honest go of it. Wednesday it was cloudy and cool outside and I was bored at home because Kayla was at work so I thought I would give pho a try and if it turned out good Kayla would have a nice surprise when she got off work. I scoured the Internet for recipes and learned it wasn't really too hard to make Pho, mainly just time consuming. So, I went to our favorite Asian market and procured all the ingredients including big soup bowls and chop sticks for $32. I went home and started on my broth which is beef bones and about .5lb of sirloin boiled for 3hrs along with onions and ginger root (first roasted in the oven to bring out their essential oils) along with a handy spice packet wrapped in cheese cloth containing cinnamon, coriander, cloves, star anise and fennel. After the broth had simmered approprately I strained it through cheese cloth and prepared my noodles. The noodles are real quick you just have to blanche them for about a minute. Next, I set my bowls with noodles, then slices of lean flank steak and tripe. Then you just add your boiling beef broth which cooks your steak and you are good to go. We had the table all set up with the "fixins'" of basil and what not. And when it was all said and done it was pretty tasty!! I think next time I'm going to get more oxtail for my broth but overall it wasn't bad for an Okie's first attempt at Pho. Sadly in the midst of preparing dinner (which included a badass karate kick i utilized to knock a, what i thought was empty, eskimo joe's cup half full of fruit punch crystal light out of Kayla's hand when she came into the kitchen while i was preparing the bowls. Don't mess with the Chef! You thought Hell's Kitchen was intense!) we forgot to take pictures. But, I promise to get shots next time! I also expect a better return on investment next time since I'll just have to get the herbs and meat.

I encourage everyone to step outside their food comfort zone from time-to-time because once you get over it "being different" and give it a shot you may just be pleasantly surprised.