Vietnamese Pho 1512

M and I were unbelievably excited when we learned that this month's Daring Cooks' challenge was Vietnamese pho. Could we really create something as amazing as the pho we've had in restaurants in our own kitchen?? The short answer is yes, thanks to Jaden of Steamy Kitchen, the host of this month's challenge. Provided that we plan in advance, we can now skip the lines that snake down the block from our neighborhood pho restaurant.

Jaden offered us the option of doing a quick version, or doing the longer, more authentic version. Because we wanted to see how closely we could replicate our favorite pho restaurant, we opted for the longer version - for both the chicken and beef versions. That's right, we did BOTH chicken and beef. You can take a look at the recipes on the Steamy Kitchen website.

First, we tackled the chicken. Working with chicken is certainly more familiar and comfortable for me than beef, so it seemed like a good place to start. We charred the ginger, toasted star anise, coriander seeds and cloves, and roasted garlic since we wouldn't be using onion, which was meant to be charred along with the ginger. Mike hacked up a chicken and threw that in a pot with water, sugar, fish sauce, and the toasted spices. That simmered away until we had an unbelievably fragrant and authentic tasting pho broth.

Next, we addressed the beef. Jaden recommended using leg and knuckle bones for the best tasting pho. This required going to an asian grocery store, where we found everything we needed and more. We got beef bones like I never thought I'd buy. I'm glad we did, though, because we made some of the best tasting beef broth pho we've ever had. While both the chicken and beef pho were delicious, M and I preferred the beef pho. The chicken pho had a delicately flavored broth, whereas the beef was more robust and flavorful. With the colder weather just around the corner, I know we'll appreciate being able to eat pho without having to put on our coats this winter.

We made one tiny change to Jaden's recipes in that we used smaller noodles. I don't know if it's an east coast versus west coast thing, but pho restaurants in DC/Northern Virginia use smaller noodles than the ones that Jaden recomended, which are comparable to the noodles used in pad thai. While I'm sure the pho is equally delicious with the wider noodles, for us, the smaller noodles were the more authentic option, and I think our pho turned out pretty close to pho 50/pho 75/pho 14.