Pho Lessons

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Photo by Sherry Ott

After a mouth-watering breakfast we started walking to the market. Motorbikes zipped by us honking, and big trucks rumbled by billowing black, choking smoke. I had gotten used to walking among this chaotic traffic on the roads, in fact the whole things seemed normal to me. Tuyet had a list of items we needed to get at the market; Pho spices, beef bones, meatballs, fresh greens, noodles, onions, and sprouts. We had decided to make my favorite –  pho bo (beef). I also had Tuyet add coconut to the list since I also wanted to try to make rau cau dua (a Vietnamese jello made with fresh coconut juice and agar agar), my favorite dessert in Vietnam.

With our hands full of bags, we took a taxi back to the apartment and the long process of making pho began. First we had to start the soup stock, which is the longest and most important part of any pho. Many people cook the stock all day in huge batches, but we had about 4 hours to cook the stock and it was the first thing we worked on. We started it with water and beef bones. We strained out some of the fat as it boiled and then added the onions – let it cook longer, added the spice packets – let it cook longer, and finally the meatballs – and let it cook longer...

Read more on Sherry's blog.

Written by  Sherry Ott.

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