It's ideal food for a hot climate with it's savoury stock base providing liquid and salts, great for cycling or a hangover and a solid (in the loosest sense of the word) breakfast dish. On doing a bit of internet research it appears one of the main drivers in the soup base is star anise. I ended up adopting a recipe I found which used Chinese five spice rather than a mix of individual spices on the grounds that I've yet to rebuild my spice collection after returning from travelling. Before I get on with the recipe I must add a couple of small caveats. Firstly all measurements are very approximate, I tend to wing things like that, sorry. Secondly, I have no idea about how to write up recipes, bear with me as I try to develop a style.
Pho Chay (serves two I reckon, I rounded up the quantities)
Soup base
1.5 litres of vegetable stock
Top of a leek
1 onion, cut in half
2" piece of ginger, crushed (I used a heavy knife and bashed it with the handle)
4 pieces star anise
3 teaspoons Chinese five spice
Water from shiitake mushrooms
Soy sauce
Sugar (half a teaspoon)
Japanese ume plum seasoning (see below)
Ingredients
Can of mock duck (available at Chinese supermarkets, although you could happily substitute firm tofu)
Rice noodles
Bottom half of the leek, sliced
Few dried shiitake mushrooms, rehydrated and sliced
Small carrot, diagonal cut
Half a red pepper, cut into strips
Handful of green beans and broccoli spears. These were going cheap at the supermarket, use`what you want really. In Vietnam I'm sure I had slices of well cooked turnip in a couple of pho's
Beansprouts
Fresh coriander
Fresh basil
Chopped green chilli
Wedge of lime
Putting it all together.
Put the shiitake mushrooms to soak in boiling water for as long as possible (give them a quick wash off first to remove debris). If you're just starting the recipe then chuck them in the stock and fish them out towards the end.
Trim the outer most layer of the onion off and cut in half. Add it to the stock along with the green leaves from the leek top, the crushed ginger and star anise. Simmer the lot for 45 minutes or so. Use the time in between to listen to Radio 4, do the washing up and prep other ingredients.
After 45 minutes add the five spice, soy and sugar and let it all simmer for another quarter of an hour.
When it's on the final quarter of an hour it's time to start sorting out your other ingredients. The packet rice noodles (banh pho) I was using needed to be cooked for around 6 to 8 minutes and I estimated that the rest of the ingredients would take a little less time to stir fry so started working with that time frame in mind. It was the noodles in first, then over to a wok. Chuck the diced mock chicken in and stir fry in a little oil for a minute or so, then drop in the leek, carrot, mushrooms and pepper. At the same time I put the beans and broccoli spears in to steam over the rice noodles for a couple of minutes. When they were done I dropped them into the wok to stir fry with the rest of the veg for the last couple of minutes.
Then it was just a matter of draining the noodles, placing them in the bottom of the bowl with the stir fry over the top and ladling over the soup. Serve with plenty of fresh basil, coriander, sliced green chilli, a wedge of lime and beansprouts to add as you go along. Thing about beansprouts is if you add them all at once or during the cooking they loose their marvellous crunch and I do like a bit of crunch!. Oh, and the Japanese ume plum seasoning? When I tried the stock in the pan it was OK but needed a bit of umph (I probably mean likely umami) so I added a dash. If you've not got any and you feel it needs that umph you could add rice wine vinegar or more soy, or just use a stronger stock.
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