Friend Or Pho?

Pho is the national dish of Vietnam [technically pronounced ‘Fuh’ but that sounds weird to me] and Liz introduced me to it three years ago after our visit to the Geffrye Museum. I watched a bit of a programme on the Food Network the other evening, where they were eating pho, so thought I’d make some.

Pho is basically soft rice noodles in a beef [or sometimes chicken] broth. Usually the broth is served with an assortment of garnishes and you add what you want to your plate. There’s a more authentic recipe here, but this is what I made for lunch, in less than ten minutes, using ingredients I had to hand.

Here’s my recipe and method [serves 2]

• Fill and boil the kettle
• Put two soup bowls into the oven to warm
• Put one pint of stock into the microwave, cook on high for 4 minutes [mine was 50/50 rich chicken stock and cold water]
• Put 2 packages of rice noodles in a pan, and cover with boiling water from kettle. Simmer
• While that is happening, slice three spring onions, including the green tops, and three slices of cooked meat [I had ham in the fridge, beef would have been better], and three lettuce leaves
• grate a thumb sized piece of ginger
• Put 5floz boiling water in another pan, add ham, onions, ginger, and lettuce
• Stir in 1 dessertspoon brown sugar, 1 tablespoon fish sauce, and simmer.
• Drain the noodles, divide between the two bowls
• Mix the stock with the other ingredients, stir well, then ladle over the noodles
• Serve

Bob said that this was definitely a Main Meal rather than a light lunch! Next time I may halve the quantity of noodles and use two thirds of quantities for the other ingredients. It did taste good though. You could add chopped chillies or chilli sauce if you wanted to be more authentic [but I don’t like chillies!]