Making a Pho without beetlejuice
Tonight, for EnviroMom's Meatless Supper Club, I tackled a vegetarian version of Pho (roughly pronounced "phua"), a classic Vietnamese soup.
Researching it threw up some interesting facts:
- Apparently it's ridiculous that I could even think of making a vegetarian pho. One food writer sniffily said that at the very least, it should be made with beef stock.
- Another traditionalist insisted that one can only make a decent pho by sweetening it with the correct species of peanut worm and adding an extract of water beetle pheremone. True.
- The Vietnamese don't mince words when it comes to descibing their meat. Their words for pork and beef literally mean: "kill-pig" and "kill-cow".
Luckily my family are not sniffy so I gave the tofu version a shot and skipped the worms, beetles and kill-cow.
The building materials:
For the broth...
1 small unpeeled onion, quartered
2 unpeeled shallots, halved
8 garlic cloves, halved
a 1-inch piece of ginger, coarsely sliced
two 3-inch cinnamon sticks
2 pods of star anise
4 cloves
8 cups clear vegetable stock
3 tablespoons soy sauce
salt
For the soup ...
1 pound rice noodles
8 ounces seitan or fried tofu, sliced
6 scallions, thinly sliced (both green and white parts)
about 1-1/2 cups bean sprouts
a good handful of basil, mint or cilantro leaves, left whole
1 lime, cut into wedges
hoisin sauce
sriracha chili paste
To make the broth, heat a large pot over medium-high heat. Add the onion, shallots, garlic, ginger, cinnamon sticks, star anise, and cloves and dry-roast, stirring occasionally, until the vegetables begin to char. Add the stock and soy sauce and bring to a boil over high heat. Turn the heat down to medium-low, cover, and simmer for about 25 minutes. Strain into a clean pot and discard the solids. Taste the broth and add salt if necessary. Keep warm over low heat.
While the broth is simmering, prepare the rice noodles. Place the noodles in a large bowl. Pour boiling water over the noodles to cover and soak as per the instructions.
Ladle the hot broth into bowls. Let everyone help themselves to the noodles, fried tofu, scallions, bean sprouts, herbs, lime wedges, hoisin sauce and chili and season their own soup as they wish. Makes 4 to 6 servings.
The verdict:
I thought my husband would be really keen on the Pho and I'd end up making peanut butter sandwiches for our son. However, despite mega-compliments from hubby as he was constructing his bowl, at the end of the meal he declared it just "alright". Our son, on the other hand, went back for seconds. I ate the sandwiches myself, trying hard not to think about peanut worms.
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