Today's dinner experiment was the fine, fine dish of Phở. When I was in San Francisco over the summer, I picked up "Pleasures of the Vietnamese Table". Of course, I didn't know then that it'd take this long to actually put it to use. Aww well...that's life for you.

The total process took about 3 hours. Most of the prep work is pretty simple - the garnishes are all fresh, and the noodles almost tend themselves. The broth does require a few steps - an initial boiling before transfer to the final broth water, charring ginger + onions, adding the star anise/clove spice ball at the proper point and lots and lots of SKIMMING. However, it seems like the broth steps are just long enough to allow for getting everything done in time.

The end product was quite delicious. The broth needed to be a bit saltier and probably could benefit from a bit less fish sauce, but it still did the job. I really liked that the recipe had two different cuts - chuck & sirloin - and two different levels of wellness - fall apart soft & quick cooked in broth - for the beef. Thankfully, my two willing guinea pigs both liked it. Plus we were all utterly stuffed because the recipe was for 6 meal-size portions. I'm definitely going to make this again in the future.