The other evening, Steven inquired: Have you seen the Quick Chicken Pho recipe printed in this old edition of The Week Magazine? Well, I hadn't read that issue yet, and I was delighted to be introduced to Andrea Nguyen's version of the classic Vietnamese soup, which is included in her recent The Pho Cookbook (Ten Speed Press).
We prepared the pho the following night, and it was as promised: quick from start to finish (the author indicates that it's a 45 minute preparation), fragrant, lovely to look at and so very satisfying.
We are and have been avid pho fans for a very long time, but usually our pho is beef-based, and so the chicken-based was a completely new experience for us - and a welcome one at that! We savored every bite of it.
Of course, having a shelf of dehydrated mushrooms (and being dyed-in-the-wool mushroom connoisseurs) inspired us to add a handful of re-hydrated hedgehogs (including the water used to hydrate them) in Step 6. The mushrooms lent quite a nice, subtle background flavor to the broth and were removed when the broth was poured through a fine-mesh strainer.
The variety and quality of the product that we encountered
while on holiday in Vietnam was astonishing! Can you spot
the baskets of fresh mushrooms in this filled-to-capacity stall?
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