My attempt at phở, Vietnamese beef and noodle soup. It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t great either.
Lessons learned:
- Spices are expensive.
- Safeway’s Asian foods section sucks.
- Fish sauce smells like poo.
- I should have let the spices steep longer in the broth.
- I used too many noodles, causing the broth to be thicker than it should have been.
- I used prepared beef stock. Next time, when I have time to sit and watch a pot boil for 3 hours, I’m going to make my own.
- Perhaps it’s because I used so many noodles, but it’s really quite filling.
- I need a better knife. The beef should have been sliced way thinner than it was, although it did still cook really fast (about 1 minute in the boiling broth).
- Sriracha makes everything taste good, with the slight downside of making everything taste like sriracha.
- Fresh herbs are awesome.
- Powdered ginger is not so awesome.
