Pho Tai Recipes

AUTHENTIC PHO

Steps:

• Preheat oven to 425 degrees F (220 degrees C).
• Place beef bones on a baking sheet and roast in the preheated oven until browned, about 1 hour.
• Place onion on a baking sheet and roast in the preheated oven until blackened and soft, about 45 minutes.
• Place bones, onion, ginger, salt, star anise, and fish sauce in a large stockpot and cover with 4 quarts of water. Bring to a boil and reduce heat to low. Simmer on low for 6 to 10 hours. Strain the broth into a saucepan and set aside.
• Place rice noodles in large bowl filled with room temperature water and allow to soak for 1 hour. Bring a large pot of water to a boil and after the noodles have soaked, place them in the boiling water for 1 minute. Bring stock to a simmer.
• Divide noodles among 4 serving bowls; top with sirloin, cilantro, and green onion. Pour hot broth over the top. Stir and let sit until the beef is partially cooked and no longer pink, 1 to 2 minutes. Serve with bean sprouts, Thai basil, lime wedges, hoisin sauce, and chile-garlic sauce on the side.

QUICK BEEF PHO

Steps:

• For the Pho Stock: Add the beef base and 1 quart water to a 2-quart (1.9-L) saucepan and bring to a low boil. Add the fish sauce, sugar, ginger, onion and salt to the stock and reduce the heat to a simmer. Wrap the cloves, star anise and cinnamon stick in a piece of cheesecloth and tie it into a satchel. Add the satchel to the broth and simmer for at least 30 minutes, but no more than 45 minutes.
• Around the 30 minute mark, taste the broth to see that the spice flavors have been extracted, and adjust seasonings if necessary. Strain the aromatics and satchel from the broth, return to a sauce pot, and reserve for assembly.
• For the assembly: Bring the broth back to a simmer. In a separate pot, bring water to a boil. Using a sieve or basket, quickly dip the noodles into the water until they are hot and al dente, 10 to 20 seconds. Drain the excess water from the noodles and distribute the noodles between 4 bowls.
• Top each bowl with some sliced beef, basil, bean sprouts, cilantro, jalapeno, scallions and onion, or as each person wishes. Ladle in enough broth to cover the ingredients in the bowl. Garnish with a lime wedge. I like to serve pho with Sriracha and hoisin sauce.

PHO TAI

Steps:

• Bring 4.5 gallons water to a boil.
• Trim top off shallots, leaving skins and bottoms intact. Rinse and leave skin on ginger. On high heat, dry-fry shallots and ginger until shallots are slightly charred and ginger is soft on edges, turning regularly for about 15 minutes.
• Pound ginger until it cracks slightly, and add ginger and charred shallots to boiling water.
• In a medium tea ball strainer, combine fennel, bay leaves, cinnamon, anise, and cloves; add tea ball with spices to boiling water. Add oxtail to water, and return to boil.
• Cover and reduce heat to medium-low, maintaining a slight boil. Skim fat periodically (2x / hr) and cook for 4 hours.
• Add chicken bouillon, sugar, 2 tbsp sea salt and fish sauce, cook for 1 more hour, then strain all solids from broth.
• 20 mins before broth finishes, begin soaking rice noodles in cold water for 20 mins, and place eye round steak in freezer to ease slicing.
• Arrange lime wedges, cilantro stalks, thai basil stalks, sliced serrano peppers, diced green sections of green onions, hoisin, and sriacha on serving plate for personal addition to the individual soup bowls.
• Fill small saucepan with water and 1/2 tsp salt; bring to a boil. Place strainer inside saucepan and cook rice noodles in 3oz increments in water nest for 90 seconds each before transferring to individual bowls.
• In each bowl, place 3oz cooked noodles, 1 oz thinly sliced white onion, 2oz thinly sliced raw eye round steak, 12oz broth. Hot broth, when spooned into the bowl, will cook the raw eye round slices.
• **Note: if scaling down on numbers of servings, cooking time should remain the same. Also, bean sprouts traditionally are added to the garnish plate; I personally don't care for them so I have left them out of the recipe and photos in this case.