My first taste of Pho was in London when I went for lunch at Pho in Great Titchfield street. I’m a big fan of soups and will sometimes bypass a Thai curry for a bowl of hot steaming flavour.
Ever since that first bowl that delighted me as I put it together at my desk I have wanted to make my own Pho. I went to a Vietnamese family run restaurant and took great interest in the components of the broth and all the finishing touches. I tasted the broth on its own and it had a wonderfully fragrant scent, meaty and delicate at the same time.
So when I spotted what was the featured meal on this month’s Waitrose magazine I grabbed it off the shelf and plotted when I could make Pho.
We ate roast beef on Sunday leaving us with some rare leftovers; perfect for Pho!
It was on. I bought everything I needed at the supermarket and spent the day waiting until I could put it all together.
This is the recipe I used from Waitrose Magazine:
Ingredients
70g dried flat rice noodles
500ml chicken stock
2 star anise
1 cinnamon stick
2 lemon grass stalks, bruised
2cm piece fresh root ginger, thickly sliced
1 tsp fish sauce
235g pak choi, thickly sliced
200g rump steak, trimmed of fat and thinly sliced
150g beansprouts
4 salad onions, sliced on the diagonal
1 x ½ red chilli, deseeded and sliced
1 handful mint leaves
1 lime, cut into wedges
Method
1. Prepare the rice noodles according to pack instructions. Heat the chicken stock in a large pan with 300ml water, the spices, lemon grass and ginger. Bring to the boil and simmer with the lid on for 15 minutes. Using a slotted spoon, scoop out and discard the spices, lemon grass and ginger. Stir in the fish sauce.
2. Bring the soup base back to the boil. Stir in the prepared noodles and pak choi; simmer for 2 minutes. Add the steak and beansprouts to the pan and cook for another minute. Divide between 2 large bowls. Top with the salad onions, chilli and mint and serve with lime wedges.
My soup ready to be ladled into bowls:
The garnish including thinly slice roast beef, salad onions, chilli, limes and mint:
Kats Whispers 
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