Fiddling With Pho, Part 2: Broth

 

It's a tricky thing to get the kind of flavor development you want in a comforting bowl of soup without muddying up the flavors themselves. Pho is no different in that respect, but it has some more interesting aspects that require vigorous balancing. The additions and techniques themselves are fairly simple, but the adjustments and quantities are largely up to you. In some ways, part of the process is rather like making stock... twice. You make it, and then you make it again using the first stock in lieu of water, compounding the flavor development.

• Salt. Yes, it's obvious, but it does merit a mention. Underseasoned food means the flavor suffers, irrespective of how well that flavor has been developed.
• Reduction. Slowly and deliberately evaporating a portion of the water will leave behind the flavor compounds and concentrate them.
• Gelatin. This is one that doesn't get a lot of play, but for a richer and more viscous mouthfeel, an extra envelope of unflavored gelatin will get you places you could never otherwise go.
• Fish sauce. It's got a lot of names (including some nasty ones if you spill or break the bottle), but it's a necessary fundamental to a proper bowl of pho. It's not vigorously salty, but it adds enormous depth and body.
• More spices. You're going to want to infuse even more flavor- that means ginger, galangal, coriander, star anise, cinnamon, and all manner of other aromatic enhancements.
• Sugar. Yes, sugar. Ideally dark brown sugar or palm/coconut sugar for their more complex flavor profiles, this adds a great deal of intensity in a way that salt and pseudosalts cannot.

Now if you cook a lot, there's one that you might expect to see but don't: booze. I can't say for sure why that is, but my personal hunch is along the lines of "Why not just drink it?". Drinking culture is quite normalized in Vietnam, and anecdotally homemade booze is also not uncommon, particularly among the more rural mountain communities. I don't know the necessary minutiae of Vietnamese history offhand, so I can't help but jokingly wonder- can we partially blame the French for that?
For once though, I doubt it.

Fiddling With Pho, Part 1: Stock.

It's still very much soup season, and for me the gentle complexity of a bowl of pho really hits the spot. On the surface it's simple. Noodles, meat, broth, vegetables, garnishes. But the complexity comes at every single step. The broth is the keystone, but you can't get a good broth without a good stock, and the best stock comes with a few tricks up its sleeve.

• Bones. If beef or pork, start them in cold water and bring to a boil for 5-10 minutes to blanch and release some gnarly, scummy detritus. Then fish out and reserve the bones, dump that water, clean the pot, put the bones back and start over.
• Charring and Toasting. Many specialized stocks use aromatics whose flavor is intensified by caramelization or other methods of blooming flavor. This will deepen both flavor and color, but raise the risk of a burnt or acrid flavor, so treat with caution.
• Minimal Knifework. The larger the pieces, the less likely the vegetables will break down, and the clearer the stock is likely to be.
• Aggressive Quantities. Your flavorful ingredients should only just barely be covered with water. Yes, it's expensive. You thought paying 15 bucks a bowl was too, I bet.

So while these are useful axioms and informative tidbits, they are deliberately bereft of precise quantities and proportions. This being due to the disparity in equipment availability between many home kitchens. Here's my personal starter for a batch of stock designed for pho. It's robust, aromatic, and full of potential flavor, but has no salt, and none of the real magic that comes from a complete, fortified broth. This is just the basic stock- the first step on the road to greatness.

Ingredients:

5# /2200g pork, beef, or chicken bones
3 onions / 900g halved, peeled, and charred under a broiler or other device
10 dried shitake mushrooms
8 oz /220g ginger, sliced to expose max surface area, and charred like the onion
(Alternatively, 6oz /165g galangal, treated identically)
3-5 stalks lemongrass, crushed
3 Tablespoons whole coriander seed, toasted
5 whole star anise, toasted
2 cinnamon sticks, toasted
5 whole cloves, toasted
1 bay leaf

Equipment:

Large pot, at least 12qt capacity
Coarse strainer
Cheesecloth (optional)
2 Large bowls (or other vessel), one that can fit inside another
Ice
Ladle and tongs

Process:

- Place bones in large pot and add enough cold water to cover the bones by 2 inches.

- Bring to a rolling boil and continue for 5-10 minutes. There will be a variety of scum that floats to the surface.

- Drain the bones and rinse them under cold water. Wash the pot, making sure all the unwanted leech is gone, then place the bones back in.

- Add the other ingredients, and fill the pot with cold water. 10 quarts or till level with the ingredients, whichever is lower.

- Bring to a simmer, and cook for at least 3 hours. If the liquid level drops, add more. To prevent excessive liquid loss, lid the pot.
(This isn't something you have to constantly monitor. A peek every half hour or so is fine)

- Carefully remove the bones and other large items and dispose of them to reduce the weight of the pot. The softer vegetables are left nearly whole to help prevent clouding of the broth through breakdown.

- Add ice to the larger of your two bowls, then a little water. This ice bath will speed the cooling process.

- Pour the liquid into the second bowl through a strainer (the cheesecloth is in case you don't have a fine enough strainer to prevent solids in the stock), and then place the finished bowl of stock in the ice bath.


And that's all there is to the first part of a fine bowl of pho. Nicely quick and easy, right?

...No? Really?

Maybe you weren't overpaying after all.