Recipe: Pho broth

the aromatics

Right now in Vancouver, Pho is rampantly popular.  Meat, noodles, and a rich broth - you can't ask for much more from a meal in a bowl.  Pho is such a homestyle dish, once you get the general hang of it, play around with it and work out your own style.  Then you'll have people knocking your door down when they hear you are making some because they know that the only place to get your pho is from your kitchen.  

For now we'll stick to the standard flavours - ginger, nutmeg, cinnamon and cloves.  To make it easy, we're going to assume you already have a decent beef stock made, and this process is just tweaking the flavour of the broth.  Once you have the finished broth, the rest is garnish - rice noodles, beef, bean sprouts, cilantro, Thai basil, green onion and a squeeze of lime.  As for the beef, the easiest way to do it is to get shaved raw beef (shabu-shabu) and drop it briefly into the hot broth to give it a little cook and add a bit of flavour to the soup.

let it brew

You will need:

4L / 4qt                          quality beef stock or broth

1                                     onion

1 medium piece             ginger

2 pieces                          nutmeg

1 stick                            cinnamon

5 pieces                          star anise

1tsp                                cloves

to taste                           fish sauce

to taste                           sriracha sauce

to taste                           hoisin sauce

to taste                           kosher salt

Method:

 - in one piece of tin foil, put the spices

 - smash the ginger into a few pieces, cut the onion into 6, and put in another piece of tin foil

 - roast both bundles in the oven

 - put the stock or broth into a pot

 - when you can smell the spices, take them from the oven and add them to the stock

 - roast the onion and ginger until the edges of the onion have coloured, then add to the stock

 - turn the stove on and bring the stock to a simmer

 - allow the broth to brew and reduce by about a litre

 - put the shaved beef in a strainer and drop into the broth just to cook slightly

 - season the broth with the fish sauce, hoisin, sriracha, and salt

 - strain the broth

 - garnish and serve, or chill and store until needed