We all have sore throats, so we've been eating a lot of soup lately (to the point that one of the counter people at Panera knows me by name). Dinner tonight was Pho, a Vietnamese beef soup and it was a definite hit.
I used the recipe here (I highly recommend this blog, btw - it has tons of great crockpot recipes), with a few modifications. The biggest one is that I omitted the fish sauce because the beef I got at Trader Joe's was marinating in a sauce for Korean bulgogi. I looked at the ingredients and none of them conflicted with the flavor profile of pho, so I decided to give it a try. I omitted the anise because I don't like it and used ginger powder instead of fresh ginger because that's what I had. I added approximately two cups of fresh bean sprouts at the very end of cooking, so they would be warm and somewhat cooked, but not stewed and gross.
As it turned out, the bulgogi marinade was a fantastic gamble. The long slow cooking in the crockpot made the beef tender and delicious and the entire meal was just divine.
I threw up my hands in despair a while ago and decided that I just wasn't meant for Southeast Asian cooking, Thai in particular. I can never get ingredients as good as they have in restaurants, and they're often not quite right, like having to use Italian basil instead of Thai. I have to buy a bunch of large bottles of stuff that I don't use often enough to use them up before they go bad, which means it doesn't wind up being cheaper to cook that sort of thing at home, so I might as well just go to a restaurant where it's cooked by an expert. But pho is going to become part of my regular repertoire, so maybe I can conquer some of the cuisine of Southeast Asia after all.
(Ack! Internet service is extremely bipolar tonight, so I doubt I'm going to get all of my comments in.)
I love Pho! Haven't had any in about a year and I miss it so. Here from NCLM.
ReplyDeletethanks for the comment. This is my 3rd time on Metformin, It never helped my weight before but he bumped up my dosage, so maybe this time will be better.
ReplyDeleteThat looks like some good soup! Hope you're all feeling better soon.
ReplyDeleteVisiting from NCLM
There are some Thai dishes that you can buy sauce/mix packets for in the grocery store (at least in Southern California but I am sure the innernets has a way to get it). It is cheating a little, but cheaper than eating out and tastes pretty good.
ReplyDeleteSounds yuumy - boy I sure do wish I cooked :)
ReplyDeleteThanks for your supportive comment on my last post. And I do agree with you, all we can do is give them the tools they need in life and they have to use them. It's just hard to sit back and watch him "not" use his. Kinda makes me want to hit him with them (I've noticed I am sprouting some violent tendencies lately-eeek)
Hope you all get to feeling better!!
I love Pho! I'm going to have to try that recipe. I hate Pink Eye. I think my brother and I got it about a million times as kids. I hope you all feel better soon! (Here via NCLM)
ReplyDeleteI hope you're feeling better!
ReplyDeleteDropping by from NCLM. Sore throats AND pinkeye - what a run of bad luck you have had! Happily, you do have good food to tide you over. I love trying new recipes and I love Asian food, so this looks good. Thanks for the tip.
ReplyDeleteThat Pho sounds awesome. If I ate beef, I bet it would sound even more awesome :) And I've had the same experience with Thai food -- it just seems cheaper and easier (and tastier) to get it made by someone else. We have an East Asian food cookbook that we never use that I might be tempted to whip out after reading this post. (Here via NCLM)
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