Phô Noodle Soup

PHÔ- Noodle soup ( I served 5 people with this)

Phô is a really delicious and light noodle soup from Vietnam. What makes this soup special to other noodle soups is that most of the flavour comes from all the herbs you add in the end according to your liking, which makes this a really refreshing and healthy soup. It consists of a meat broth, rice noodles bánh phô, meat (beef or chicken), beansprouts, lime and lots of herbs.

The Stock

1l beef or chicken stock preferably homemade or buy good quality one not cubes(I already had some in the freezer from before).
To add some flavour just chuck some of these ingredients in to your liking and let simmer for a while.

3 star anis
3 coriander roots
1 nub of ginger approximately 3x 2cm
3 stalks of lemongrass
splash of fishsauce (everyone can add this to there liking later on as well)
splash of soy sauce

just make sure the stock is not too salty...it's easier to add the soy and fishsauce later than remove any...however if you do feel like it's too salty just add water or if you have unsalted beef or chicken stock.

Other ingredients for the soup

Flat rice noodles banh phô for Phô soup. You can precook the noodles a bit beforehand and cool them of. They will become hot from the broth anyways when poured on.

Meat to your preference: Chicken, beef or pork.
I used a really nice piece of marbled beef. Slice it thin and boil it in the stock just before serving the soup.

For the garnish or actually the main ingredient that everyone adds themselves.

Lime wedges
Ginger cut into thin slices
Spring onion sliced into thin slices
Beansprouts
Chili
Lots of Herbs: including Mint, Basil, Noo Gai, Coriander, and whatever else you want to add.

How to do it all.

This is actually the best part of it all....You can prepare everything beforehand:
the veggies and garnish can be washed and cut up and arranged nicely on one plate.
The noodles can be precooked and cooled of.
The stock can be made way before.
And the beef sliced and ready to go. You just need to cook it for a few minutes in the hot broth.

Once your guests arrive and you're ready to serve just put the plate of herbs and veggies in the middle of the table. Bring the stock to boil.
Put a handful of noodles in each serving bowl.
Cook the meat in the stock and place the pieces on top of the noodles.
If you like you can decorate each plate with some greens but otherwise it's up to everyone to help themselves and pick the ingredients they like in their soup.
Just pour on the broth and Voilá!

                                                             Really easy and FUN!

Back From My Holiday

It's already been a week since I got back from my trip...which was amazing by the way :) and I already feel a bit guilty about not posting anything new. I've been cooking quite a bit and have been taking pics but with all the millions of pictures from my holiday in Tokyo, Vietnam and Hong Kong I feel like I don't know where to start...and then I get nothing done as usual :D
I'd love to tell you about my trip in detail but I think there's so much to tell that for now I will try to keep it short.

Tokyo: amazing, quirky, cool, yummy soba noodles, sushi, yakitori etc. It was more than I could ever have wished for so I think I will definitely plan a new trip there...and next time stay a bit longer. When I arrived I was surprised that the streets were so empty, but it all changed as soon as everyone got off from work. Also I was surprised that not every corner was filled with sushi and Harajuku girls. For the latter I was a bit disappointed so I ended up atleast wearing a Lolita wig for the last night :) (everyone who knows me knows that I love dressing up and sometimes I wish I lived in a place where nobody thought I'm weird for doing that on a regular day. Anywhooo...enough about dressing up! The food was awesome....I especially loved the yakitori places hidden away on small side streets and the izakayas.

Next stop...

Vietnam....Hoi An was beautiful with the yellow houses by the river lit up with chinese silk lamps...just magical :) but what I enjoyed the most was sitting on the small stools like they were made for kids and eating the most delicious noodle soups ever....and did I tell you about the herbs....OMG! I was in herb heaven. Even in the small street stalls you got a big a bunch of fresh green leaves that you could pick from and add to your soup....YUMMYYYY.

Riding a Waterbuffalo

HuTieu at a great Street Food Stall



Next we went to Phu Quoc island just to relax on the beach.

 Phu Quoc Island Sao Beach

I think I'll tell you more about my trips in separate posts once I get a Travel folder and get all my pics sorted :)

Once back...guess what the first dinner was all about? YUP! Vietnamese night. My friends wanted to try something Vietnamese so I made Phô, Bò Lá Lôt, rice paper rolls and a lemongrass Pannacotta.

For an evening like this your best bet is to hit the Asian stores to get all the best ingredients.

I will post all the recipes in my following posts :)


PHÔ, BÒ LÁ LÔT, RICE PAPER ROLLS

Japan in a Bowl

    Really soon I will be going on my first trip to Japan :) Although it will be just a quick stop before going to Vietnam I'm really excited and can't stop thinking about sushi (and also Pho). So one night I was trying to think of what to eat and couldn't stop thinking about sushi (which I often do). I wasn't really in the mood to stand in the kitchen all evening which tends to happen when I make sushi so I thought of coming up with something else. I tried to think of all the ingredients I had at home and guess what?.... I ended up making a sushi inspired dish afterall. All I needed to buy was some fresh salmon. I ended up making this incredible bowl of food from the contents of my fridge. I made a salmon tartar with some pickled ginger, sushi rice, avocado, spinach, beansprouts and wasabi flavoured sesame seeds :) this was soooo yummy that I'm sure to make it again soon. You should too!

You will need:

Sushi rice (cook according to instructions on the package)
1/2 Avocado sliced
handful of beansprouts
handful of fresh baby spinach leaves
Salmon 200g (or depending on how hungry you are)
Fresh ginger approximately 40g thinly sliced
sugar
sushi vinegar or rice vinegar
soy sauce
Roasted sesame seeds or if you have any kind of sesame seed mix. I used two different kinds that I had in my kitchen. I used wasabi flavoured sesame seeds and also a mix called Furikake from Renee Voltaire which contains sesame seeds, seaweed and shizo leaves.

The Salmon 

Dice the salmon into cubes, marinate with some soy sauce and mix with the Furikake sesame mix. Pour in the liquid from the marinated ginger to get some extra flavour.

I also prepared some slices of salmon using the blowtorch to get a nice grilled flavour. Just sprinkle a little bit of salt and sugar on them first (but only a little bit you don't want them too sweet).

The Ginger

Slice the ginger thinly. Put into a small pot and cover with rice wine vinegar (approximately 2 tbsp) add some sugar to balance the sourness (approximately 2 tsp). Bring to the boil. Let it simmer till the sugar has dissolved and the liquid is a bit syrup like.

The Rice

Wash the rice well. Be gentle with the rice grains. Treat them like something small, delicate and fragile. Wash until the water is clear. Cook the rice according to cooking instructions. I don't have a rice cooker which would be the best so I just cooked the rice in a pot. When the rice is ready splash in some sushi vinegar or rice wine vinegar and mix in carefully. Add only a little at a time so your rice doesn't end up too lose. You kind of just make a criss cross pattern not to ruin the rice grains. You want to end up with rice grains that are whole but still stick a little bit together. The worst for me is when the rice is so overcooked and mushed together so it stick to your teeth.

Just put all the ingredients in a bowl and enjoy!

Aaah now just from remembering this dish I become so hungry and would like to eat it again tonight....however I already checked the contents of my fridge and will be making Salmon soup tonight....maybe tomorrow :)



And in just a few days I will be off to Tokyo to eat some real Sushi :) :) :) Can't wait!!!