Soup · Northern Vietnam
Pho
Vietnamese beef and rice noodle soup, its broth built on charred ginger and warm spices.
About the dish
Pho is the beef and rice noodle soup of Vietnam. It took shape in the north, around Hanoi and Nam Định, in the early twentieth century, and spread south after 1954, where the bowls grew more generous with herbs and garnishes.
The broth is the heart of it. Beef bones are blanched and rinsed, then simmered gently for many hours; a hard boil would cloud the broth. Onion and ginger are charred over an open flame or under a broiler first, which deepens and sweetens them, and whole spices are toasted: star anise, cinnamon, cloves, black cardamom and coriander seed. Fish sauce seasons the broth, and a little rock sugar balances it.
Flat rice noodles go into the bowl with thin slices of raw beef, which the boiling broth cooks on the way to the table, or with cooked brisket. Northern pho stays plain, with scallions and perhaps a little chili. In the south, the table holds bean sprouts, Thai basil, lime wedges, chilies, hoisin and chili sauce, so each eater adds their own sour, heat and sweetness to a broth that is already savory and fragrant.
Written from general cooking knowledge, as background on a dish from the game’s recipe book. It is not a tested recipe.
The flavors it leans on
Pho in Night Kitchen
In the game, Pho is a soup in the recipe book. A plate is named Pho when it holds these cards and is cooked with exactly these techniques, with at most one extra ingredient.
Ingredients
- Beef chuck
- Noodles
- Ginger
Techniques
- Char
- Simmer
How those cards taste
Cooked from just these cards for an average ticket, before tonight’s mood and quirks, it would please Gus (2 stars), Theo (2 stars) and Odile (2 stars) most.
“Beef and noodles in a broth that cooked all night. Burn the ginger first. A fellow on Canal Street told me that.”
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