Pho noodle bowls.
We can use a base stock of anything we want.
Really great pho is bones roasted
and slow-cooked with great aromatics, and that's your base.
The cheater can do what we're gonna do right now,
fortify broth.
I am literally defrosting beef stock,
'cause we're making beef pho.
And all I did was take an entire bulb of garlic,
trim the end, a good chunk of ginger, I peeled it,
an onion, all I did was quarter it, that's it,
with the root end attached, charred it,
and I'm sliding it in.
So now the broth, vegetable, beef, chicken, seafood,
doesn't matter, will be fortified
with garlic, ginger, and onion.
The signature flavors of the broth in this Vietnamese dish,
again, we're taking a bunch of shortcuts here, okay?
Instead of using cheese cloth,
I literally use a loose tea bag,
and I put in a stick of cinnamon, one fresh bay leaf,
white and black peppercorn,
a few star anise, and three pods of cardamom.
And then I'm gonna take the shoe laces
and tie them on to the side of the pot.
Today, I used these small steaks here.
They're little sirloins, super lean,
I trimmed the fat and I cut them across.
And simply pick, do not chop, pick.
Thai basil and Thai mint is what I have.
Guess what, if you can't buy Thai basil and Thai mint,
guess what you can buy?
Mint and Italian basil.
I also have a bunch of cilantro.
I divided the whole leaves without the woody stems
of Thai basil, cilantro, and mint.
I had in the fridge some bean sprouts
from the other day, so I threw those in.
You can be a little creative
if you wanna throw in a little extra veg.
These beautiful, literally it says on the package, pho,
they are designed for this, rice noodles.
And this particular company says six minutes.
All right, let's start on the rice noodles.
Wah.
Six minutes per our package directions.
And I'm just gonna give 'em a quick rinse
just to loosen it up.
Make it a little nest.
The classic way to do this
is to put the protein in the dish raw.
Simply cover it, or let it steep in a deep bowl.
You need a deeper bowl than this for that to happen, okay?
The way I think you're gonna prefer it,
I took out our aromatics, the roasted onion, okay,
and the ginger and the garlic,
all we have left is our bag of spice.
Look what I'm doing.
About a minute in, 'cause it's gonna continue to cook,
take the protein and pile it on top of your noodles, okay?
Now we're gonna take the bowls and add the lime juice
over our protein of choice.
And then what do we do?
Well of course, we use our beautiful fortified broth.
And I mean go all over everybody,
the herbs, the chilies, the bean sprouts, the meat,
the noodle, everything.
(bells chime)