Immigrant Kitchens: Vietnamese Pho

Vietnamese Pho

A couple weeks ago, I cried out to my book group buddies, "I need an immigrant!" Never mind my longstanding hankering to learn how to make authentic pho. Not two weeks later I was in a cooking lesson with one member's husband, who for years had been cooking his favorite traditional Vietnamese meal for his family every Sunday. Pho. It never ceases to amaze me how close we are to what we are looking for. See below for the recipe, story, how-to photos, and cooking class info.

photo: Lindsay Sterling

The Story

Phenomenal Pho

How Hieu Nguyen makes the real deal at home.

By Lindsay Sterling

My friend's husband, Hieu Nguyen, grew up in Dalat, Vietnam, until he was five. He remembers Vietnam’s gorgeous rolling hills, beaches, rainforests, and lakes as a cross between Vermont and Costa Rica. He hasn’t been back since he left in 1975, the day before Saigon fell. He hopes one day to visit with his wife and kids. In the mean time, he lights incense and cooks a Vietnamese chicken noodle soup, called pho, combining his grandmother and mother’s methods with his own, discovered after years of cooking it every Sunday for his family.

He starts with one whole chicken. Insisting that the clear broth is only achievable by removing all the skin and fat, he does so with a sharp boning knife, creating what looks like a great textbook chicken anatomy poster. Then like a surgeon (he even wears surgical gloves) he cuts off every muscle group from the bones while leaving the entire skeleton still intact. He massages all the meat pieces in a bowl with fresh chopped ginger and garlic, sugar, salt and fish sauce, and lets them marinate on the counter while he makes the broth.

In a large stockpot he covers the bones with three inches of water, and adds a peeled carrot. Before adding a two-inch chunk of ginger and a whole onion to the stockpot, he toasts them directly over the flames of his gas stovetop so that they’re steaming, and the ginger skin is smudged with black. He fills a mesh spice ball infuser with 3 sticks of cinnamon and about a teaspoon each of black peppercorns and cumin seeds, a slightly smaller amount of whole cloves, 6 star anise, and 10 green cardamom pods. He screws on the top and then hangs the chain on the rim of the pot letting the ball of spices float in the water.

I’ve tried making pho before and my broth was cloudy and disappointing. One thing Hieu shows me: infuse, don’t abuse. The broth is clear and delicate not only because he took off all the skin and fat, but also because he never lets the broth boil - not even a simmer. Also, about every ten minutes throughout the hour and a half that the broth is steeping, Hieu lifts out fine particles from the top of the broth with a handheld fine-mesh strainer.

After he has removed the carrot, onion, ginger, bones, and spice ball with tongs, he carefully adds the chicken meat to the hot broth and sets a timer for thirteen minutes. Once the timer is up, he removes the chicken with the tongs and has me taste it: the most tender chicken ever. He insists: thirteen minutes poaching is the magic number.

He loads each extra large bowl with rice noodles (cooked just like you would spaghetti), sliced chicken, scallions, broth, fresh mung bean sprouts, and the fresh whole leaves of Thai basil, culantro, and cilantro. He squeezes a lime wedge over each bowl and puts a whole fresh Thai chili on the side for munching on. (I will only make it through half of mine, but he will eat two). Hoisin and Sriracha sauces are ready to be squirted on top. The contents of our bowls are to be tossed like a salad, and slurped with fat-bottom spoons and chopsticks. The result is better than a restaurant, and far cheaper. Hieu finds the whole process meditative.

Click at right for the recipe, how-to-photos and cooking class info.

The Recipe - Vietnamese Pho

As Hieu Nguyen from Dalat, Vietnam, taught Lindsay Sterling, in Falmouth, ME July 2013

Serves 8
Cooking Time: 3-4 hours

For the marinade:
3 cloves garlic*
2" ginger
1/2 Tbsp sugar
1/4 Tbsp salt
1 Tbsp fish sauce (he prefers Viet Huong brand)*

For the broth:
1 whole chicken

2" (okay to leave skin on)

2 Tbsp sugar

1/2 Tbsp salt

2-4 Tbsp fish sauce (he prefers Viet Huong brand)*

1 tsp black pepper corns*

1 tsp cumin seeds*

3 cinnamon sticks (3"inches each)*

10 whole cardamon pods*
20 whole cloves*
6 whole star anise*
1 large carrot, peeled and cut into 1/3rds
1 large yellow onion, peeled
16 oz. chicken broth

For the soup:
24 oz. rice noodles (1/4" wide)*
1 bag (about 4 cups) fresh mung bean sprouts*
1 bunch Thai basil*
1 bunch culantro*
1 bunch cilantro*
6-12 red Thai chilis*
1 lime*
4 scallions*
Hoisin sauce*
Sriracha sauce*

Equipment:
stainless steal spice ball (for infusing herbs in broth) or cheese cloth and string*
sharp boning knife
large cutting board
2 medium bowls
1 large soup pot or stock pot
small handheld mesh strainer and small bowl
large colander for noodles
8 larger-than-normal, pho-style bowls with base plates*
8 large, flat-bottomed spoons*
8 pairs chopsticks*

1. Marinate the meat.

Rough chop garlic and 2" of the ginger. Put in a medium bowl. Take skin off whole chicken using a boning knife. Carve meat off the bones (breasts, legs, thighs and back muscles), trimming all fat off as you see it, and place meat in the bowl with the ginger and garlic, and the bones in a stock pot. Mix 1/2 Tbsp sugar, 1/4 Tbsp salt, and 1 Tbsp fish sauce into chicken meat with hands. Wash hands. Discard all chicken fat and skin. Wash cutting board and anything that touched the raw chicken. Cover chicken and let marinate.

2. Make the stock.

Place bones in a large soup pot or stock pot. Cover chicken bones with cold water by 2-3 inches and turn on medium. Add 16 oz. chicken stock, 2 Tbsp sugar, 1/2 Tbsp salt, and 4 Tbsp fish sauce. Enclose black pepper, cumin, clove, cardamom, star anise and cinnamon in a cheese cloth or a stainless steel spice ball. Roast whole onion and ginger over bare stove flame until ginger skin is black and onion is steaming and put both broth. Once broth begins to steam, turn heat to low. Don't let the broth boil or simmer at all. Once the broth has been steaming for about 20 minutes, swipe a handheld mesh strainer through the top three inches of broth, removing particulate matter and any oil. Discard the contents of the strainer and run it upside down under water as necessary to clean. The goal in the end is to have a clear broth, which is achieved by getting rid of floating particles and oil, and never boiling the broth. Repeat this process about every ten minutes over the course of an hour and a half to achieve clear broth. If you have oil on the top, skim off with large flat spoon.

3. Prep the fresh toppings.

Wash the bean sprouts, all the fresh herbs, lime and chilis. Dry with paper towels and place each on separate plates. Slice the lime into 8 wedges and then slice the wedges across into half wedges so you have 16 pieces.

4. Cook the chicken.

After the stock has been cooking for about an hour and a half, remove the ginger, onion, carrot, spices and bones. Slowly submerge the marinating chicken into the hot broth. Cook for 13 minutes, remove chicken and place in a clean bowl to drain and cool. Send the hand held strainer through the broth 4 or 5 times to get the ginger and garlic chunks out. Slice the chicken into 1/4 inch slices and put on serving plate(s).

5. Make the noodles.

Bring a full large pot of water to a boil (for cooking rice noodles). Add rice noodles to boiling water and cook for 8 minutes. Strain and run cold water over them so they don't stick together as much when they're cool.

6. Assemble the bowls. First put rice noodles in the bowl, then 4-5 pieces of chicken, sprinkle on sliced scallions. Ladle on broth so the noodles and chicken are surrounded. Pick leaves off Thai basil and cilantro leaves from stems. Add about 4 of each to each bowl. Break culantro leaf into 1 inch long pieces, and add to soup. Add a mountain of bean sprouts on top. Squeeze lime over top. Serve with fresh whole Thai chili on the side.

7. Finish each bowl at the table. Diners squirt generous squiggles of Sriracha and Hoisin sauces on top of his or her bowl of pho. Before eating, toss the contents of the bowl with the chopsticks in one hand and flat-bottomed spoon in the other as you would a salad. Use chopsticks to help load up the flat-bottomed spoon, and go ahead and slurp the contents of the spoon and juice into your mouth. Take a nibble of the Thai chili (one of the hotter chilis in the world). When all you have is broth left, it's okay to lift your bowl to your mouth to sip the rest.

*Where to Get Ingredients:

Hieu just loves to get all these fresh herbs, bean sprouts, fresh ginger, fish sauce, spices, chilis, limes, and even Pho serving dishes at Veranda Asian Market. He also found packets of pre-mixed pho seasonings so you don't have to buy more quantity than you need of spices like star anise.

Veranda Asian Market

695 Forest Avenue

Portland, ME

874-8001

open daily 9am-9pm

See How to Do It

Vietnamese Pho

Take the chicken skin off a whole chicken. Then cut the meat off the bones, leaving the bones all connected (this makes them easy to remove later).

But the bones in a stock pot and cover with 3 inches of water.

Roast an onion and ginger over the flame.

And add to the stock pot.

Enclose spices in a spice ball or cheese cloth sac tied with string. Include black peppercorns...

star anise...

green cardomom...

cloves...

cumin...

and cinnamon sticks.

Instead of buying all these spices and a spice infuser (or cheese cloth and string), you can buy these pho spices pre-mixed at Asian stores. They come with a little cheese cloth sac to put the spices in.

Once you put the spice sac in the stock pot, go ahead and marinate the meat in ginger, garlic, fish sauce, salt and sugar.

This is the brand of fish sauce Hieu likes.

As the broth cooks over the next couple hours, use a fine mesh strainer to scoop out particles and oil. Rinse the strainer every so often in the sink to clear it.

These are the rice noodles he used.

Wash all the fixin's and put them out on plates so the soup bowls are easy to assemble.

After the broth has cooked for 1 1/2 hours or so, you remove everything so it's just the broth and poach the meat in the clear broth for 13 minutes. After you take the chicken out, strain the broth one last time to remove the chunks of ginger and garlic that were on the marinating chicken.