Vietnamese Inspired Beef Noodle Soup (Pho)
An Asian Tour: Cooking Vietnamese- Inspired Beef Noodle Soup
Hey guys, this is Dave from Cooking Chair, and today I'm going to take you on an Asian tour and we're going to cook up one of the most popular soups in Vietnam - Vietnamese-inspired beef noodle soup. Sometimes referred to as Pho, it's comforting, delicious, and you're going to love it. So, let's get started to make this soup.
To begin, we're going to need these spices and we're going to start with a piece of thumb-sized ginger that I've sliced in half. Now, a couple of cinnamon sticks, four star anise, and you can pick these up in the spice sections of bigger supermarkets or in just about any Asian store. An onion sliced in half and I usually leave the peel on because it adds a little bit of extra flavor. So, what I've done is I placed them on a baking tray with some parchment paper just so they don't stick.
Now, go ahead and turn your oven up to broil, place them on the highest heat, wrap back, and leave them to broil for about 15 to 20 minutes, just until they begin to char. If you have a Stova ceramic cook top, you can place the spices directly on the burner area and do them like that. I have to tell you, while the spices are baking, an incredible aroma fills the air. Once you've done that, just go ahead and set them aside.
While the spices are baking, we're going to boil up some water here, and this is just about enough to cover the bones. So, you're going to go ahead and place the beef bone B in, and boil these for about 10 minutes. What I'm using here is a combination of legs and knuckles - I've got half a kilo here after about 10 minutes, as you can see, you've got a lot of scum happening here. So, what you need to do is get your strainer and discard this water; then, you're going to rinse the beef bones under some cold water and just kind of wash them off thoroughly.
This is going to give you a nice clear broth, so what I've done is put the bones back into the pot and given this pot a cleaning too. Then we're going to pour some fresh water in, and the amount really depends on how much beef you're using - I'm only using half a kilo, so just enough to cover the meat. Bring this to a boil over high heat after a boil reduce the heat to low, add in about a tablespoon of sugar, a teaspoon of salt, put in the spices that we prepared earlier, put a lid on it, and let it simmer for I'd say an hour and a half to 2 hours.
While the soup is simmering, don't forget to click to subscribe and never miss a video. After a couple of hours, the broth is pretty much done, and believe me, this smells incredible. So, at this point in time, you can go ahead and give it a taste test if it needs a little more salt, you can go ahead and add it, but this is just perfect for me - these spices have come together so nicely.
What you need to do now is take a strainer and remove everything from the pot, but you want to keep the broth simmering in the pot. Then, remove the meat from the bone, take a good sharp knife and slice it up, and believe me, this is so tender and flavorful. Now, it's time to work on your noodles.
We're just going to go ahead and cook these up in some boiling water - mine are about 3 minutes, but it really depends on the noodle you use. Just look on the back of the package once the noodles are cooked, go ahead and strain them, and transfer them to your preferred serving bowl. Garnish it up with some fine, finally chopped spring onions followed by a layer of the sliced beef, and you can add as much or as little as you like.
Now, let's blanch four strips of raw beef and four of the spring onions in the broth for about 5 seconds. At this point, I've strained the broth off just to get rid of some of that yucky residue so we get a nice clear soup. So, we'll just go ahead and ladle these over the noodles, then fill the bowl with the ever-so-delicious broth, finish it off with some bean sprouts, about three basil leaves, and a wedge of lime.
And there you have it - our Vietnamese-inspired beef noodle soup, it's so comforting, and once you've tasted this guys, you're going to know it was well worth the effort. Head on over to Cooking Chair.com for this recipe and many more recipes, and don't forget to click to subscribe and like our videos. Thanks for watching, and see you next time!