There is a fantastic site called Ang Sarap http://angsarap.net/, featuring the cuisine of the Phillipines and Asia, that has become one of my favorites. Wonderful recipes and gorgeous photography, I almost always, unless it’s cake, want to eat and/or make whatever R.S. Macaalay is posting. Today, I just couldn’t resist any longer!
I’ve always wanted to make Pho, but the recipes seemed too fiddly and I couldn’t be bothered. R.S.’s recipe seemed perfect for the effort I wanted to expend. His pan roasting of the onions and ginger before adding to the spice bundle is brilliant!
There were no oxtails in the market today, so I substitute 2 massive slices of beef shank. Everything else is almost exact. Because it takes 4 hours to cook the broth, we’ll have to wait for tomorrow to see how I did. Today we’re having filet mignon from the traiteur 🙂
Pho broth
2 large onions, quartered
1 inch ginger, quartered
Olive oil
5 star anise
4 or 5 whole cloves
1 cinnamon stick, halved
3 bay leafs
1 tsp black peppercorns
1/4 tsp fennel seeds
2 lbs of oxtails or beef shank slices
3 quarts of water
1/4 cup fish sauce
With a paper towel, coat a skillet with the olive oil, brown the onions and ginger, then place in the middle of a piece of cheese cloth, add all the spices and tie securely.
Bring the meat and water to a boil, skim the foam, add the spice bundle, then lower the flame and simmer for 4 hours. When done, add the fish sauce. If not using immediately, cool and refrigerate.
I also follow his blog, it’s really great. Good luck with the recipe, can’t wait to see the result!
Thank you Villy. It smells really good 🙂
Those pictures are amazing!
Thank you, and so are the pictures and food on your site!
Hehe thank you 🙂 Lot to learn still!
I’m very keen to try the mysteriously named pho. I remember watching a Rick Stein programme about Vietnamese food where he was talking about pho and saying it was amongst the most delicious things that he had eaten.
I’ve had it in restaurants and it is amazing! We’ll see how it turns out….
Reblogged this on Day in day out and commented:
Brutally good I’ll make it on the weekend.
Thank you Juan. Let me know how it turns out.
I will have to check out that blog. Pho is all in the broth. Sounds like a wonderful broth recipe. We have a restaurant called Black Pepper Pho in Boulder that is sublime!
He’s got a good blog, Connie.
Great! Shank is definitely the way to go. I usually add some flank too. I like ox-tail for a viet stew, bo kho.
Thank you Jon.
Sorry for the double post, but for pho I just stab the onion and ginger with a fork and toast/roast them over the flame.
Good idea Jon! You can post as many times as you like 🙂
Lovely first photo of ingredients.
Thank you kale.
I can’t wait to see the final product tomorrow!
Fingers crossed 🙂
I’m waiting with baited breath…
Us too 🙂
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Here it is :D. We always have ox tail where I live, but I’ve never tried it. I must 😀 – though I realise this didn’t end up being ox tail.
If I could have found them, I would have used them but the shanks were fine.
Oh, they clearly were. shank is a really great cut too.
Thanks for the link to another great blog – I’m all for savoury tasties ! and the Pho is looking good
You are welcome. It’s a great blog!
Looking forward to it! I bet the pho broth is going to be incredible. Yum!
Your food selections are always so diverse. You’re lucky to have so many cultural influences, and that freezer!
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i think of pho as primarily broth – so do i take out the shank after simmering for four hours?
Yes. http://cookinginsens.wordpress.com/2012/05/24/pho-pho-pho/
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