pho, and foo.
Jun. 5th, 2008 10:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
wombat1138The wombat-consort has been home sick all week-- nothing serious, just a low-level debilitating flu-like thing. As a semi-consequence, I decided to try making pho at home according to this recipe, since beef back ribs were on sale at Safeway and I was getting bored with chicken soup.
It's not a terribly difficult recipe, since most of it just involved simmering stuff for hours. There were a few fiddly bits-- the initial blanch to boil out most of the blood proteins, and then repeatedly filtering out all the remaining solids toward the end-- but the result was about 6 quarts of beautifully clear, delicately spiced broth. The seasonings seem based on the assumption that each diner will squirt in several blorps of chili/hoisin sauces at the table, but a bit of soy sauce and some fine-chopped tiny lethal peppers (I keep a small baggie of them in the freezer) can easily make up for that. The fresh garnishes are definitely required, though-- bean sprouts, Thai basil leaves, green onions, and a squeeze of lime juice. Some thinly-sliced beef is also lovely tossed in (traditionally added raw, with boiling stock poured over to flash-cook it; since the wombat-consort was already sick, I decided not to risk it and just stirred them around in the hot broth to cook before serving).
Since I didn't have the right kind of noodles on hand, I tried the broth and assorted garnishes both on their own and over pre-cooked rice. I think I actualy prefer the former; a sufficient quantity of bean sprouts can somewhat approximate a noodly texture.
Overall, it's hard to say whether the recipe was worthwhile-- yes, the result is very nice, but the time/ingredients just aren't very cost-effective if you have several local places to just walk in and get a big bowl of pho for less than $10. OTOH, I do like having LOTS of this broth to play with.
And as a random note, I believe that this comment from a Cassie Edwards defender is one of the finest examples I've ever seen of Not Getting It. "Ms. Edwards writes about Nature in a very beautiful way", egads.
It's not a terribly difficult recipe, since most of it just involved simmering stuff for hours. There were a few fiddly bits-- the initial blanch to boil out most of the blood proteins, and then repeatedly filtering out all the remaining solids toward the end-- but the result was about 6 quarts of beautifully clear, delicately spiced broth. The seasonings seem based on the assumption that each diner will squirt in several blorps of chili/hoisin sauces at the table, but a bit of soy sauce and some fine-chopped tiny lethal peppers (I keep a small baggie of them in the freezer) can easily make up for that. The fresh garnishes are definitely required, though-- bean sprouts, Thai basil leaves, green onions, and a squeeze of lime juice. Some thinly-sliced beef is also lovely tossed in (traditionally added raw, with boiling stock poured over to flash-cook it; since the wombat-consort was already sick, I decided not to risk it and just stirred them around in the hot broth to cook before serving).
Since I didn't have the right kind of noodles on hand, I tried the broth and assorted garnishes both on their own and over pre-cooked rice. I think I actualy prefer the former; a sufficient quantity of bean sprouts can somewhat approximate a noodly texture.
Overall, it's hard to say whether the recipe was worthwhile-- yes, the result is very nice, but the time/ingredients just aren't very cost-effective if you have several local places to just walk in and get a big bowl of pho for less than $10. OTOH, I do like having LOTS of this broth to play with.
And as a random note, I believe that this comment from a Cassie Edwards defender is one of the finest examples I've ever seen of Not Getting It. "Ms. Edwards writes about Nature in a very beautiful way", egads.