My Favorite Vietnamese Recipes

Vietnamese Beef Noodle Soup (Pho)

INGREDIENTS:
8 ounces small or medium dried rice sticks
8 cups beef stock
1 small yellow onion, peeled, halved, and thinly sliced
8 ounces beef eye of round, slightly frozen, sliced paper-thin (if serving special meats from stock recipe, only use 4 ounces eye of round).
4 ounces cooked special beef cuts (from making stock), thinly sliced traditional herbs
1 cup bean sprouts, root ends trimmed
2 or more red bird's eye or Thai chilies, stemmed, seeded, and thinly sliced 1/2 cup fried shallots, 1 lime, quartered,
Hoisin sauce, fish sauce

Preparation: Place the rice sticks in a dish with lukewarm water to cover. Let soak until pliable, about 20 minutes. Meanwhile, pour the beef stock into a pot and bring to a gentle boil over medium heat. Reduce the heat to medium-low, add the onion, and partially cover until ready to use.

Bring a pot filled with water to a boil over high heat. Drain and divide the rice stick noodles into 4 equal portions. Place them, one portion at a time, in a sieve and lower it into the boiling water. Untangle the noodles with chopsticks, and boil until tender but firm, about 7 seconds. Remove and drain the noodles, then place them in a large soup bowl. Repeat this step until you have 4 individual servings.

Set a few slices of raw beef eye of round on top of the rice noodles (or if you prefer, cook them first using the sieve and boiling water as in step 3). At this time you can also add some slices of one or more of the special cuts of beef. Pour a generous amount of hot broth with some onions over each serving and garnish with some traditional herbs, bean sprouts, chilies, and fried shallots, and squeeze a wedge of lime over each serving. Sweeten the broth with hoisin sauce and adjust the seasoning with fish sauce as desired.

Beef Stock to eat with Pho  (Nuoc Leo Bo)

INGREDIENTS:
2 pounds oxtail, cut in 1-inch-thick pieces (double amount if not using optional meats) or beef bones
8 ounces beef brisket (optional)
8 ounces beef tendon (optional)
1 large yellow onion, peeled
5 whole cloves
4 ounces fresh ginger, peeled, cut into 4 slices and lightly crushed
5 star anise
1 cinnamon stick, about 2-1/2 to 3-inches long
1 teaspoon white or black peppercorns
coarse sea salt

Preparation:  Trim some of the fat off the oxtail pieces. Put the oxtail with water to cover in a stockpot and bring to a boil over high heat. Blanch for 15 minutes, then drain and rinse both meat and pot. 

Place the oxtail back in the stockpot, add the brisket and tendon (if using), cover with 5 quarts water, and bring to a boil over high heat. Reduce the heat to low, add the onion studded with cloves, the ginger, star anise, cinnamon stick, and peppercorns, and season with salt. Simmer, uncovered and undisturbed; occasionally skimming off foam, until the stock is reduced by 2 quarts, about 3 hours.

Remove the brisket and tendon from stock, and reserved for use in another dish. At this time, skim off as much fat as you desire. Strain the stock, discard the solids, and use according to the recipe of your choice. The stock can be kept up to 3 days in the refrigerator or 3 months in the freezer.

NOTE: Beef tendons are not only used in making this stock or eaten in pho, but they are sometimes braised in soy sauce, a great delicacy. Tendons are the white fibrous connective tissue that holds together muscle (or meat) to bone. This part of the cow is not used in Western cooking, and so you will need to purchase it from a Chinese butcher in Chinatown.

 

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