Welcome to my first food post!
Over the years I’ve grown to love cooking more and more. The more I experimented with flavors and it actually end tasting good, the more confident I was in trying to cook different foods. Now, I love sharing my cooking with family and friends. Nowadays, I get requests for me to cook certain dishes for get togethers, teach them how to cook something or share my recipes. Well I decided to actually measure and write it down everything I do so that I can actually share a real recipe with those family members and friends (and hopefully new friends) right here on my blog.
So let’s start out with some Beef Pho, shall we? Pho is one of my favorite Asian dishes of all time. It’s one of the first dishes I learned how to cook when I first got married and has improved throughout the years. I’m happy to share this recipe that my family and I will love pho life.
Beef pho
Ingredients
1 lb ox tail
3 lbs beef round of eye (oven roast)
1 pack meat balls (optional) (cut in quarters)
1 sweet onion (whole, peeled)
1/2 tbsp thin soy sauce
1 tsp soy sauce
1 tsp fish sauce
1 1/2 tbsp Salt
1/2 tbsp msg (monosodium glutamate)
1/2 tbsp sugar
1/2 tsp garlic powder (optional 3 garlic cloves)
1/4 tsp ginger seasoning (optional 1/2 cut fresh ginger)
1 pack rice noodles
2 stalks celery (cut in half)
cilantro (chopped)
green onions (chopped)
Optional toppings
basil
bean sprouts
crushed peanuts
siracha sauce
hoisin sauce
fried onion
fried garlic
some pictures for reference
Cooking instructions
Beef broth
Use at least 8 quart pot. Fill up with water to 6 quarts. I just happen to have a pot with measurement on the side. You can just fill the pot at 3/4 full. Turn on high to bring water to a boil.
(Side note: If you want to brown ox tail, oven roast, onion, fresh ginger and garlic cloves. You can brown and roast them in a separate pan before putting them into the pot of boiling water)
If you want to skip, just go ahead and ddd ox tail and cut oven roast in quarters and then add 2 pieces of the roast to the pot of water. After the water boils, turn down to medium and let boil for about 10 minutes. Skim foam and scum floating at top. Add meatballs, whole sweet onion and celery.
(I added onions and celery before skimming in this picture. oops.)
Wash and cut cilantro and green onions. Cut off cilantro stems and green onion stems (cut off roots). Add cilantro stems and green onion stems to pot.
Add salt, msg, sugar, ginger seasoning, garlic powder, thin soy sauce, soy sauce, fish sauce.
Continue to let boil for an hour to 2 hours for best taste.
Preparations while broth is cooking
Fill a large mixing pan with hot water. Soak rice noodles for 10 minutes. Drain water from noodles with strainer. Set aside.
Chop cilantro and green onions. Set aside.
Slice other 2 quarter pieces of oven roast. Slice thinly. Set aside.
When the beef broth is done. It’s time to cook the noodles. Using a small separate pot, add enough water to cover the noodles you want to cook. Bring water to boil and add noodles to pot. Cook for about 3 minutes or until noodles are soft. Strain and transfer to bowl. Add raw beef slices that you sliced and set aside before. Add oven roast, meat balls, and beef broth pot. Be sure that the broth is hot enough to cook the raw beef slices that is in the bowl. Otherwise, you can cook them in the same small pot as you cooked the noodles.
Top with cilantro and green onions.
Other optional toppings
sliced onions
basil
bean sprouts
crushed peanuts
siracha sauce
hoisin sauce
fried onion
fried garlic
