Tuesday, March 31, 2015

Homemade Pho

I finally got around to making one of my favorite soups, Pho.  Pho is a vietnamese soup of beef broth, noodles, bean sprouts , basil, lime wedges, and sliced jalapeƱos.  With this soup the broth is the most important.  It is a simple broth that needs to be taken seriously.  The key is getting beef bones with alot of marrow, and from what I was told you can use oxtail for the broth as well.  This gives you a rich, yet delicate flavor to you broth.  You need to make sure you boil your bones for 15 minutes discard the broth as you have just removed all of the  impurities from the bones to get  the best stock possible. Next is your ginger  and onion.   I cut mine in half and roast in a cast iron skillet to develop the flavor of the broth.   The last step in making this broth is your  aromatics.  You can buy the pho spice packet for $1.50.  This gives the broth its balance.  The  cinnamon stick, star anise, cardamom floral aromatics pair well with beef broth, the vietnamese touch.  Once your broth is complete, which takes about 3 hours you are ready to make your bowl of pho.  My bowl of Pho consists of thinly sliced raw ribeye, par cooked rive noodles, bean sprouts, basil and for the first time I added kimchi.  Kimchi the wonderful spicy fermented cabbage, I added a overwhelming pile of it to my bowl. I poured the pho broth over top of all my ingredients to cook them.   I finally added a spoonful garlic chili to the bowl.  I finally was able to sit down and proudly slurp my pho.......


Asia Supermarket -Schamburg

It was about a 25 minute drive, and right on the intersection of golf road in Schamburg.
This market was much more put together than the ones I have been to before.  I took just about 10 minutes to walk around the whole market. Everything was marked in English which made searching for ingredients and product much easier.   Here are so photos of some great seafood, frozen dumplings, that seemed to go forever,  thinly sliced meats,  and some great beef bones.