The recipe I decided to try was a Pho recipe that I found from a cook book by one of my favourite chefs, Gordon Ramsay. The recipe looked to be fairly straight forward and had a lot easy to follow instructions. The most difficult part of the recipe was finding some of the exotic spices needed for the recipe. The spices are not that difficult to find but they just weren't something I would normally use in my day to day cooking.
When I started making the broth for my pho, I noticed that some of the exotic spices such as star anise and cloves were quite potent. I was very careful not to over spice my broth because it could've easily turned into a big hot mess. I did have to make one substitution to the recipe, I used beef broth instead of beef stock. I made the substitution because it was quite late at night when I started cooking and I didn't have the time to make my own stock from scratch. By making the switch to beef broth the soup for my pho was darker and a little saltier then what I would normally see at restaurants.
One thing I've never tried before was using ginger root to marinate my beef. The ginger root used to marinate the beef broke down a lot of the muscle tissue which really made the beef nice and tender when it was cooked. I had to be very careful not marinate the beef too long in the ginger because if you marinate the beef for too long the texture of the beef could turn into mush.
The Final Results
My attempt at the dish turned out fairly well, the soup had a lot of flavour and paired very well with the noodles and the marinated beef. I still feel my soup could've been better if I made my own stock. I think the next time I decide to make this recipe I will take the time to roast the beef bones and make a delicious base for my soup. If I make my own beef stock next time I think I could even impress a vietnamese mother.
Recipe Information:
Gordon Ramsay's Healthy Appetite.
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