Saturday Night: Pho

When I flipped through BittmanWorld the first time and saw a pho recipe, there wasn't much doubt that I'd have to give it a try. Since it's definitely a weekend prep, and Andrea was very enthusiastic, we made this yesterday.

I pretty much followed the recipe, though I used "beef knuckles" from Draegers (some piece of leg bone with a substantial chunk of meat still attached) instead of plain bones and chateaubriand instead of sirloin.

This recipe is really simple, it's just time consuming and is certainly a form of torture as the whole house fills with the smell of star anise, cloves, and ginger. But the results are certainly worth it: Pho is just soooo good.

Comments:

1. The beef knuckles are meaty enough that I would have been fine leaving the chuck out of the recipe entirely. They have a great flavor and enough connective tissue that they'd probably make a really good roast or braise on their own... Something to remember now that we're in roasting and braising season. :-)
2. Even though we pre-heated the bowls (we pretty much always warm plates and bowls these days, it's great), and used boiling broth, there was enough cold stuff in the bowls that the soup wasn't as hot as we liked. So we tossed the finished bowls in the microwave for a minute after assembling them. It would be better to do this before adding the thinly sliced beef and herbs.
3. I resisted the temptation to add lemongrass to the broth, because I thought it might overpower the other ingredients. That was probably the right decision, because the broth is fairly subtle (at least by my standards), but I'd still like to try adding some lemongrass at some point.