Vietnamese soup Pho....ummmmmmm

[Ineedastarter]

Originally Posted by Daniel.

Good luck. It takes forever to make good Pho broth.

I'm an experienced grillardin, with a background as a Saucier so I had a class with a Vietnamese chef in culinary art school, however, all I could get out of her was... 'yes, I use ox tails, beef shanks, star anise, and cinnamon on a slow boil and occasionally skim.'

She wouldn't release more info, so I told her I was going to use kombu instead of cold water for my stock, thus creating a basic dashi for my stock for an 'extra' umami taste--mainly to throw her off into divulging more details, since with all the added ingredients even the most sensitive palate could hardly tell it was there. No dice.

I'm starting to believe Pho recipes are actually 20th century Soviet-KGB State Secrets or a map to buried French gold encoded in some vietcong dialect.

I suppose its like ramen stock, some people spend an entire lifetime refining it to their version of near perfection, so I can sympathize with their aloof nature, but its their version of a Swiss cartel; it seems like they're afraid of competition, and will use protectionist methods and a poor demeanor to fend off any potential onlookers.

I've seen the basic components on enough recipes, and even with them in mind and in my best attempts I only get to about ~80% satisfaction rate, which during a Norwegian winter I find its good enough. So, I guess this SoCal native is just going to have to come home, or ideally Vietnam, for a proper bowl of pho, huh?