Rick Stein Beef Pho

 

This lovely recipe is taken from this book, I've only ever made pho from this recipe but ( having travelled to Vietnam ) it does seem pretty authentic, of course there are many many recipes as there are many interpretations of this dish. It seems complicated but once you get to grips with the two step side to making this its dead easy. 

The very first part of this delicious recipe is to make the beef broth, I always make this the day before as it takes all day to cook in the slow cooker, a lot of recipes call for stock cubes to be used but I haven't found one yet and actually the broth itself is really worth the effort.

Serves 4 

Ingredients for the Beef Broth ( makes 2.75 litres ) 

40g Peeled fresh ginger cut into 6 pieces

350g Peeled sliced shallots

4 Star Anise

2 x 7.5cm Cinnamon sticks

1/2 Teaspoon Fennel Seeds

900g Shin Beef ( very hard to find around here so I always use a large brisket joint ) 

1kg Beef marrow bones

2 celery sticks roughly sliced

2 Carrots roughly sliced

2 Onions roughly sliced

8 Cloves

1 Teaspoon black peppercorns

1 Tablespoon Salt

Ingredients for the finished dish

300gms Dried1cm - wide flat rice noodles  ( banh pho )

200g Piece Fillet Steak

10g each Thai sweet basil, mint and coriander leaves

5 Red birds eye chillies thinly sliced

2 limes cut into wedges

8 Spring onions, trimmed and sliced, green and white parts separated

4 Tablespoons Fish Sauce

100gms Beansprouts

The day before

Heat a large fry pan and toast the spices until they start to smell lovely, add to the slow cooker, fry all the veg in the fry pan to absorb all the lovely flavours of the spices and then add these to the slow cooker, add all the other ingredients into the slow cooker. ( Now it's worth mentioning at this stage that I have made this a few times now and the broth tastes exactly the same for not browning the veg first ) .Bring to the boil and skim off any scum that rises to the top in the process, add salt , lower the temperature to a simmer and leave all day cooking really gently.

Turn off the heat and when a little cooler, drain all the broth into a clean bowl and leave in the fridge overnight. Don't throw away the beef as this makes lovely sandwiches.

In the morning, any fat can be taken off the surface.

To make up the finished dish, bring the lovely broth to the boil, drop the noodles into a pan of boiling salted water, turn of the heat and leave to soak for 10 minutes.

Meanwhile, finely slice the beef, put the basil, mint, coriander, lime wedges and chilles into separate bowls to serve.

Add the white part of the spring onions and the fish sauce to the broth, , drain the noodles and divide between 4 soup bowls. Top with the sliced beef the green part of the spring onions and the beansprouts. Ladle over the very hot broth and serve. 

Now this recipe ( for me ) is a little skimpy on the herbage so I always serve lots more herbs and have extra fish sauce and chilli oil  ( hot sauce ) on the table as we like it HOT.