Pho



A delicious, fragrant bowl of Pho.



I’m in love with the romance of Pho. When you hear people, particularly the Vietnamese, talk of Pho it is proclaimed an ambrosial broth that when shared, can heal the wounds of political difference and bring a group together through the communal joy of its fragrant steam.

Then, there are  the recipes. I think there must be as many versions of Pho as there are families in Vietnam, and if that isn’t enough, each bowl is then finished by its ‘eater’ making each serving exclusive to the diner; each experience utterly unique.  

My husband raves about Pho, my brothers rave about Pho and many of my east-London-dwelling mates rave about Pho, but alas I often find myself disappointed. The delivered bowl often stops short of my expectations. Even the heralded Song Que was a bit, well… meh!

I want to eat a bowl served from the kitchen of a house in Hanoi, handed to me by someone’s wrinkly, smiling granny, her eyes twinkling with the knowledge that I will be won-over by her 100-year-old recipe. I just know the right bowl is out there for me!

Alas, I have no plans to travel to Vietnam soon, so my husband decided I would have to do it myself, and so one Friday night at the start of June, he decided Pho would be my weekly culinary challenge.

First, some history; it is generally agreed that Pho has both Chinese and French influences and first appeared about 100 years ago, as cooks in Hanoi tried to satisfy both Vietnamese and French tastes. Before the French arrived in Vietnam, cattle were working animals and not often used in cooking. Making the basic broth is similar to making a classic beef consommé, and like consommé, clarity of liquor is crucial. It is argued that the name (pronounced Feu) comes from the French word ‘feu’ (fire), as in the dish 'pot-au-feu', which like Pho, adds a charred o­nion to colour and flavour the broth. It’s not all potage française however, as Pho also contains the staples of Chinese noodle soups such as rice vermicelli, star anise and cinnamon.

To make my version I read; Didier Corlou ,Charmiane Solomon, Leluu, Diana My Tran and countless blogs dedicated to the love of Pho, and it went like this…



ingredients for a Pho stock.

For the Stock.

You will need a large stock pot

1 x onion

1 x 10cm stick of ginger, peeled.

4 x star anise

90g palm sugar

1 tsp black pepper corns

2 large pieces of ox tail

1.5 kg meaty beef rib (on bone)

5 tbs fish sauce

4 x cardamom

1 x cinnamon stick

½ tsp salt

no beansprouts today due to German ecoli crisis :(

To Garnish.

300g beef fillet

Bean sprouts

Sweet Basil

Mint

Spring onions

Mouli radish

Coriander

4-5 red chilis, chopped

Bottle of Sriracha Chili Sauce (available at asian grocers)

Put the beef in the pot and cover with water, bring to the boil and keep on a slow boil for 10minutes, then drain and discard the water, rinse the meat, give the pot a quick wipe and rinse out, to remove all the scum.

Put the beef back in the pot, refill with water and bring back to the boil. This step helps make a clear broth, if more scum forms skim it off.

char the onions and ginger

Meanwhile peel your onion and cut it and your ginger in half length-wise. Heat a fry pan over a high heat and put the onion and ginger in to char. No oil is required, turn the onion and ginger as required until they start to burn, you want nice blackened edges (see picture). Add these, along with all the other broth ingredients (except the fish sauce) to the pot, cover and keep on a low simmer for about an hour. Now taste, and season as required (more salt, palm sugar? Feel free to remove any of the spices if you think one flavour is becoming more dominant – I removed all but 1 star anise at this point).

Now the meat should have all fallen away from the rib bones, remove it from the pot and leave it in a container to cool. This will be sliced up and put back in the pot later. The rib bones and ox tail remain and the pot needs to simmer for at least 2 hours but all day is better. At this point, the stock is basically done and you can leave it over night if needs be.

Once the broth cools some fat may solidify on the surface, and you can easily scoop this out. When you are ready to serve you simply reheat the broth, put the sliced beef (from the rib) back in the pot and season with the fish sauce (if you add this while making the stock you will have a stinky house) taking care to taste as you add it. Remember fish sauce will be on the table, so it’s best not to make it too salty as each diner can season to taste.

Now prepare your condiments. Grate a mouli radish and pile onto a plate along with a mountain of bean sprouts, chopped spring onions, sweet basil, mint and coriander, flank this plate with 2 bowls; 1 of lime wedges and 1 of chopped red chilies. All that’s missing now is the essential Sriracha Hot Chili Sauce and the fish sauce.

add the noodles and beef fillet

Prepare your rice noodles according to the instructions (usually a quick bath in boiling water), and slice your beef fillet as thinly as you possibly can. Now half-fill your bowls with the noodles and scatter the beef slices on top and fill the bowls with the aromatic broth, ensuring each bowl gets its share of meat. Serve to your drooling guests and let them finish the dish themselves, creating a secret gastronomic experience that will never be quite the same again. I’ve got to say, this blew me away. I am converted to the cult of Pho!



Add the broth



garnish and eat!







Peking Duck with Homemade Plum Sauce



Peking Duck with Homemade Plum Sauce. An exquisite alternative Sunday lunch.

Believe it or not I was a Pescetarian for 3 years. I moved to London during the BSE crisis, and was horrified by the things I read on farming practices. I gave up meat for lent, not because I am at all religious, but because everyone in my office was giving up something. 40 days later I still didn’t want to eat meat, my resolve lasted 3 years. I crumbled when 2 dear friends got married and threw an amazing party with a spectacular 8 course feast. I didn’t want to opt for the cheese-salad on offer for the Veges, so went back to meat, breaking my drought with a plate of Foie Gras! Oh Dear.
Anyway, I tell this tale because during my time as a pescetarian I had a dirty secret… Whenever I went to a Chinese restaurant, I allowed myself Peking duck on the premise that it was ‘aquatic’! I’ve never been able to resist a Peking (or crispy aromatic) duck, it’s just too damn delicious in everyway. It has novelty, in that you make your own little roll-ups, it has that oh-so-crispy-tasty skin, it has succulent tender meat, aromatic sauce and it’s a great dish to share, bringing any table together in the communal joy of sharing a delectable meal.
When ‘Monsieur Fabuleuse’ gave this to me as my weekly culinary challenge, I was very excited. Being a traditional Chinese recipe I knew it would be at least 24 hours in the making, and would introduce me to some knew techniques. This is how it went.
I read, Ken Hom, Kylie Kwong and many online recipes and I watched dozens of how-to videos.

1.6kg duck

Ingredients for Peking Duck.

Spice Marinade for Filling.

1 star anise

1 tsp Szechwan peppercorns

2 tbs Shao Xing wine

2 tsp salt

Basting Marinade

5 cups water

1 lemon sliced

3 tbs honey

3 tbs dark soy sauce

3cups Shao Xing rice wine

My Homemade Chinese Plum Sauce

15 plums

1 star anise

¼ tsp 5spice

½ tsp chili flakes

3 tbs black vinegar

3 tbs honey

2 tbs dark soy sauce

Splash water

To Serve

24 Chinese pancakes (mu shu wrappers, can be bought from your local Chinese grocer)

10 spring onions cut into 10cm lengths and then sliced into fine strips

1 cucumber cut into 10cm lengths and then sliced into fine strips

1 carrot (optional) shredded into super fine strips.

Sweet bean sauce (can be bought from your local Chinese grocer)

Homemade Chinese plum sauce.

If using a frozen duck ensure it is thoroughly defrosted, this will take at least 24 hours. I recommend a fresh duck if at all possible.

Wash your duck inside and out and dry thoroughly with paper towel. Fill the cavity of the duck with the ingredients listed above. Leave to one side and make the basting marinade; by putting all the ingredients listed above into a large stock pot, bringing to a low boil and then simmering for half an hour.

Meanwhile you need to prep your duck for hanging, easy if you have a meat hook. If you don’t you can tie some kitchen twine around the wings, weaving it in and out and around and round until you can hold it aloft and feel that the duck is supported enough to hang overnight by the twine (see my picture).
Now think about where you are going to do the basting. You will be holding the duck above the pot for about ten minutes; I chose my kitchen table as it’s not too high.

basting the Peking Duck.

Now, to baste, hold the duck by the twine above the stock pot and ladle the hot marinade over the duck making sure you coat every inch of it very well. This is what gives the skin all of its flavour, so make sure it goes everywhere. The anemic skin should start to take on a tea-stained look. It should take 10-15 minutes.




Hang  in a cool dry place

 Now it’s time to hang your duck. Choose a cool, dry but airy place. I hung it in my laundry. It was rather macabre looking, see my picture. Remember to put a tray underneath the duck as it will drip.

My homemade plum sauce.

To make the plum sauce, put all the ingredients in a large pot, bring to a low boil and let it bubble for about 8 minutes, then reduce the heat and let it sit on a high simmer for a further 30-40 minutes, stirring occasionally to ensure the bottom doesn’t catch. It should go all glossy and dark and thick like chutney. Let this cool, then put it in a covered container and refrigerate until you need it. This recipe makes rather a large quantity, but you can bottle it and use it on all sorts of things. It should last about a week in the fridge.

The duck needs to hang for 12 hours (I left mine for about 24, and it was fine). The skin will feel dry, like paper and the duck will be a little more golden in colour.

Now preheat the oven to 240degrees, put the duck breast side DOWN on a rack over a tray filled with some water (this stops the duck fat splashing everywhere and burning). Roast it at this high heat for 15 minutes. Now reduce the heat to 180 and flip the duck breast side UP and roast for another 1hr and 10minutes. The duck will go very dark, but it is supposed to so don’t panic and think its burning. If towards the end of the cooking you think it might be starting to burn, turn the heat down to 170 for the last 15-20 minutes.



The duck is meant to be dark. It's not burnt.



When the duck is done, your kitchen will be filled with the most wonderful aromas, so your guests will be salivating and getting impatient, but they’ll have to wait as the duck needs to rest for 15 minutes. You can set the table with the sliced vegetable, and the sauces, everyone should have a small plate and some chopsticks each. I also had some steamed broccoli on the table.

Steam your pancakes, as per the instructions (batches of 10 usually take about 3-4 minutes)and keep them warm in a foil parcel.

carving the Peking Duck.

Get everyone sitting down and then bring the gorgeous, carmalised crispy duck to the table for slicing. I’m not even going to pretend I could master what the skilled Chinese chefs do (see this video!). Apparently you should get 120 even slices each perfectly proportioned with meat, fat and skin. We just cut the duck into slices where possible and shredded the rest using 2 forks.

Now your guests can tuck in by rolling their own scrumptious pancakes filled with the feast on the table.


Pancakes of Crispy Duck. Yum!


Tschin Tschin Yao Wie!

Mango, Banana and Passionfruit Pavlova

I can’t believe it took me so long to make a pavlova. I only made my first one this year! I’d heard stories of it being difficult. What piffle! Nothing could be simpler. I urge you to try this recipe, it’s easy as pie…or should I say easy as pav - pie is so much more difficult.

I like to call this version of pav 'man goes bananas with passion'...The tangly zing of passionfruit is just what is needed to cut the sugary sweetness of the meringue. A heavenly summer dessert.

Ingredients

A little butter (to grease your baking tray)

6 egg whites

1 ¼ cups caster sugar

2 tsp corn flour (plus a little extra to dust over your baking tray)

1 tsp white vinegar

½ tsp vanilla extract

300ml cream

2 tbs icing sugar

1 mango, sliced into thin slices (kind of crescent shaped or as near to as possible)

Pulp of 5-6 passion fruit

1 banana thinly sliced o the diagonal.

Preheat your oven to 120C.

Take a baking tray and line it with foil, melt some butter in pan and then brush the melted butter over the foil, dust some  corn flour through a sieve over melted butter, then blow off the excess. This will ensure your ‘pav’ doesn’t stick. Mark a circle approximately 24cm wide on the foil (trace around a plate or cake tin using the handle of a teaspoon as your ‘pen’).

If you have a stainless steel bowl use it (I don’t know if this is a truth or an old wives tale, but it always works for me) if you don’t have one, then ensure that whatever bowl you do use is spotlessly clean, any residual oiliness will stop your eggs form stiffening  properly.

Whisk your egg whites until they form soft peaks. An electric whisk makes this a cinch. Now start gradually adding your sugar, a heaped tablespoon at a time, whisking well after each spoonful. The meringue should start to thicken and become glossy, keep whisking until the peaks are stiff and standing up by themselves. Check the mix to ensure that there is no sugary grittiness, if there is still a sign of sugar then keep whisking until it is gone.

Now add the vanilla, corn flour and vinegar and whisk until combined. Gently spoon the mixture onto the foil so that it sits within the marked circle. Use your spatula to tuft the edges up into little peaks, these will crisp-up nicely and add a fancy flare to the final ‘pav’.

Put the meringue into the preheated oven and bake for 1.5 hours, it should be completely dry to touch. Now turn the oven off, leave the door ajar and let the ‘pav’ cool down completely.  Once cold, it can be transferred to your serving plate, or put in an airtight container until required.

To decorate, whisk the cream and icing sugar until thick and forming firm peaks. Spoon the cream on top of the pav and spread it over the centre. Arrange your banana and mango slices in a decorative manner atop the cream then spoon the passion fruit pulp over the top.

Bouillabaisse



Bouillabaisse, an ambrosial soup that legend says was first prepared by Venus herself!

 I drove through the Basque country and France for my honeymoon. It was a gastronomic delight; The Loire Valley, Bordeaux, Cap Ferret, San Sebastian, and then we stopped for 2 nights in Montpellier and stayed at the wonderful Baudon de Mauny, a place I heartily recommend for a romantic getaway. The next stop was to be Dijon but we decided to have lunch in Marseilles, adding 4 hours on to our journey just so we could have a bowl of the finest Bouillabaisse on earth at L’Épuisette. Due to some pfaffing on my part we were late, and they refused to let us sit down. We did not dine on Bouillabaisse that day, my darling husband tried his best not to be furious with me and I made my first wifely commitment, ‘I shall learn to cook a damn fine Bouillabaisse’. Ironic that this should be my first connubial promise, as legend says it was Venus who first served bouillabaisse, she made it for her husband Vulcan to lull him to sleep while she consorted with Mars!

Now, Bouillabaisse can be jazzed up in many ways, but one must remember that it is traditionally a provincial fisherman’s soup, made from whatever was left in the net after all the good-stuff had been sold. A simple fish stew carried to it’s zenith by smattering of provincial herbs and a thousand years of lore (Greek food writers claim to have invented the precursor of bouillabaisse, when the Phocaeans, founded Marseilles in 600 B.C. bringing with them a fish soup known as kakavia). I decided not to go for a fancy version, with lobsters, crab claws and the like, instead I have chosen a more rustic and traditional recipe which goes like this.

I read: Elisabeth Luard, Julia Child, Rick Stein, Paul Bocuse and many online recipes.

You need to use a selection of at least 6 fish. Try to select a proportion of gelatinous fish such as, halibut and eel along with some firmer fleshed varieties. Here is a selection to choose from:

Cod, Conger eel, Gurnard, Haddock, Hake, Halibut, John Dory, Lemon Sole, Perch, Plaice, Pollack, Mullet (Red or Grey), Sea Bass, Sea Bream, Trout (fresh water or Sea), Turbot, Shellfish (Mussels, Crab, Lobster, Scallops)

Many fishmongers will have a ‘fish soup’ mix. Ask them what is in the mix and how fresh it is. If the fishmonger is good, the mix should also be good. This makes life a lot easier and also makes it possible for you to cook the bouillabaisse for a group smaller than 6. If you buy the mix, then you will also need to ask the fish monger for some fish heads and bones. My fishmonger gives these to me for free. If yours doesn’t then I suggest you look for another!

ingredients for bouillabasse.

Ingredients (for 4)

About 2kg of mixed fish from the list above.

2 onions

1 leek

3 cloves of garlic

1 400g tin of tomatoes.

1 fresh bulb of fennel

3 tbsp chopped fresh parsley

1 curl of orange zest

15 strands of saffron

6 tbs olive oil

4 pints of water

1 pint white wine

Salt and pepper

4 thick round slices of crusty French bread, slightly stale or toasted.

For the Rouille

3 cloves of garlic

½ tsp salt

3 red pepper

1 large sweet red chilli

2 slices of white bread (soaked in water and then squeezed of excess)

If you buy the fish whole, you will need to prepare them (wash, scale and gut). Reserve all the debris (bones, fins, heads etc for the stock pot). Cut the fish into bite size pieces and separate the firm fleshed fish from the soft fleshed fish.

eeuwwe! Fish heads.

Put the fish heads and trimmings into a large pot with the cooking water and wine, bring almost to a boil then reduce the heat and simmer for 30 minutes. Strain and reserve.

Meanwhile, peel and chop the onions, leek, and fennel cook in 3 tbs of olive oil for about 5 minutes until softened but not browned. Now, add the saffron, garlic, orange peel and parsley and cook for another 5 minutes. Finally add the tin of tomatoes, stir through (at this point you can cover the mix, leave the fish covered in the fridge and finish the soup later.)

Before finishing the soup you need to make the rouille, I have chosen to use a mortar and pestle, simply because I am channeling a provincial fisherman’s wife circa 1850 for my bouillabaisse day, but you can use and food processor or blender (and I probably will next time).

a mortar and pestle brings out the vintage fishwife in me!

First blister the red peppers and chilies by putting them in a 200degree oven for 15-20 minutes. Take them out and put them in a plastic bag to cool for a further 15 minutes. Crush the garlic with the salt, tear up the soaked bread and add it to the garlic. Remove the peppers from the bag and pull out the stalk and tip the ‘water’ from the center into a cup, this is highly flavored with the essence of the pepper so I add this to the soup – never waste a flavour like that. Add the peppers and chilies to the garlicky mix and pulverize or blend to a smooth paste. Tip into a pretty bowl ready for service.

When ready to complete the soup, put some deep soup bowls into a low oven to warm.

Bring the vegetable mix back up to simmer and then layer the firm-fleshed fish on top, drizzle the remaining olive oil over the top and cover with the fish stock, add a teaspoon of salt and generous grinding of back pepper. Allow the soup to boil for 5 minutes.

Get your table ready with a well chilled bottle of provincial rose or Beaujolais, the rouille, a bowl of aioli, a large basket of crusty French bread and a bowl in which to discard bones and mussels shells. Diners will need a fork and spoon each.

Now add the soft fleshed fish to the pot and boil for another 5 minutes, then add the mussels and wait a further 2 minutes for them to open, take the pot off the heat.

Take the bowls from the oven and put a toasted slice of bread in the bottom of each bowl. Cover each with 2 ladles of broth, then portion the fish out making sure each bowl gets a generous share and assortment. Place the mussels on top to garnish each bowl and then add a final scatter of parsley. Serve immediately encouraging guests to add a large blob of rouille and aioli to there bowls before eating. There should be enough for seconds.