Foods and drinks

Hi everybody, I love cooking and making drinks, I wish I can share my knowledge and some experiences to you through this topic. Today I would like to introduce very famous VN''s dish to you guys - Beef soup (Pho Bo)

Preparation time: 45 min
Total cooking time: 5 hours
Serves for 4 people

Ingredients:
1kg beef skin bones
350g gravy beef
3cm piece fresh ginger, thinly sliced
1 teaspoon salt (suggest chicken powder)
2.5l water
6 black peppercorns
1 cinnamon stick
4 cloves
6 coriander seeds
2 tablespoons fish sauce
400g thick fresh rice noodles
150g rump steak, thinly sliced
3 spring onions, finely chopped (add as much as you like)
1 onion very thinly sliced

Toppings:
Chopped red chilli, bean sprouts, fresh purple basil leaves, chopped spring onion, thin lime wedges, fresh coriander leaves.

How to make:

1, Place the bones, gravy beef, ginger, salt and water in a large pan. Bring to the boil, reduce the heat to low and simmer very gently, uncovered, for 3 and half hours. Skim off any scum that forms on the surface. Add the peppercorns, cinnamon, cloves, coriander seeds and fish sauce, and cook for another 40 min. Remove the gravy beef and set it aside to cool. Drain the stock, reserving all the liquid and discarding the bones and spices; return the liquid to the pan. Qhen the gravy beef is cool enough to handle, cut it against the grain into very fine slices. Set aside

2, Close to serving time, plunge the noodles into a pan of boiling water and cook them for about 10 sec only, otherwise they will be soften and fall apart. Drain the noodles well and divide them amont large individual soup bowls

3, Arrange the toppings on a platter in the centre of the table

4, Bring the beef stock to a rapid boil. Place some slices of the cooked meat as well as a few slices of the raw steak into each bowl off noodles. Ladle the boiling stock over the top, sprinkle over the spring onion and onion slices and serve.

P/S Each dinner chooses their own topping suitable with their flavour

Have good time all

Hi Helena, is there any other way to make the beef stock apart from using beef bone? I dont'' really know where to get beef bones ( huge and proper ones). All i have seen in the supermarket here is meat and meat. Where did you find yours? In a butcher''s? I am thinking about using the beef stock cubes for convenience but not quite sure if it would produce the same quality.
Anyway, it''s great to have someone to share the passion of cooking.
I found this recipe the other day from BBC, the Chicken-ball version of Pho, hope it''s useful
Vietnamese Pho with spiced chicken balls
Preparation time less than 30 mins
Cooking time 30 mins to 1 hour
Ingredients
For the pho broth
1ẵ litres/2ẳ pts chicken stock
2cm/1in piece fresh ginger, grated
2 garlic cloves, grated
4 star anise
4 kaffir lime leaves
3 peppercorns
1 red chilli
150g/5ẵ oz vermicelli rice noodles
2 tbsp fish sauce
For the chicken balls
2 red chillies
450g/1lb chicken mince
4 spring onions, very finely sliced
2 tbsp fresh coriander, chopped
2 tbsp fish sauce
kaffir lime, zest only
1 tbsp sunflower oil
To serve
4 spring onions, finely sliced
75g/2ẵoz bean sprouts
handful coriander leaves
1 lime, cut into wedges
Method
1. For the pho broth, pour the chicken stock into a large heavy-based saucepan.
2. Add the ginger, garlic, star anise, kaffir lime leaves and peppercorns.
3. Roughly chop one of the chillies and add to the stock.
4. Heat the stock to a gentle simmer and allow to simmer for 30 minutes.
5. Place the noodles in a bowl. Pour boiling water over the noodles and leave to stand for ten minutes (or cook according to packet instructions). Drain and set aside.
6. Strain the stock to remove the herbs and spices and return the strained liquid to the pan and add the 2tbsp of fish sauce.
7. For the chicken balls, de-seed and finely chop the red chillies and put into a food processor.
8. Add the chicken, spring onions, coriander, 2tbsp of fish sauce and the kaffir lime zest and blend until mixed together.
9. Roll the chicken mixture into bite-sized balls and place in the fridge for ten minutes, or until ready to use.
10. Heat a large frying pan. Add the oil and then the chicken balls and stir fry
over a high heat for 6-7 minutes, until golden brown and almost cooked through. You will to keep them moving all the time to ensure they colour evenly.
11. Just before serving, add the chicken balls to the stock to cook thoroughly.
12. To serve, warm four deep bowls and divide the noodles among them. Next pour over the soup and chicken balls, ensuring you divide them evenly between the bowls. Finally garnish with spring onions, bean sprouts, coriander leaves and lime wedges.

Yummy!!! May i try it. I don''t like cooking much, but feel free n easy 2 taste urs. Don''t you think that''s a good job?!?

Of course it is really good ideas. People said "Some cooks, some should taste". Nice to see you anyway. Hope you enjoy

Testing...........

Well, it turns out that U r studyin aboard. I hope we could do it some day. Thank you very much.

Mời các bác tham khảo
Dự án từ thiện bữa ăn miễn phí tại bệnh viện:
http://www.vongtaybeban.info/forum/showthread.php?t=582

Thanks Helena, i''ll try the local Chinese supermarket this weekend...Hm, i start craving Pho now...

Hi everybody, How ur days been? I could not have enough time to cook Pho and post its picture to the topic. Promise will have one in the near future. Today just want to post 1 dish named: "Otopus salad" to share to you guys. It''s very easy and very yummy. I am living in NZ so Octopus is not so expensive. If you don''t want to spend much time to wash and prepare you can buy a ready one and all you need to do is making salad


I am not a chef so the dish does not look really nice like in a restaurant but studying oversea if I want to eat yummy and healthy foods, I have to cook my self. I don''t like fast foods and the decent restaurants cost me a lot of money.
There are so many foods which I don''t know and would like to know, so if you guys have any ingredients, picture of your dish please post and share with me, ok?
Thanks a lot and hope my octopus salad will make some one enjoy
Oh, I almost forget putting the ingredients:
Cook octopus sliced
Onion thinly sliced
Sping onion sliced
Cucumber sliced
Cabsicum (any color) sliced
Lemon juice (from fresh lemon no sugar or add anything)
Olive oil
Black pepper
How to make: (Very easy )
Put all octopus, Onion, Cucumber, Cabsicum to a large bowl, add olive oil and mix together. Then add salt (if you have seafood powder or chicken powder, the taste will be better), lemon juice to the combination in the bowl and mix. Try to taste whether it''s your flavour or not. The final stage is put spring onion sliced and black pepper on top and "măm măm"