This Week in My Kitchen: Phở, step-by-step

 Kirk and I both love phở. Kirk goes to Vietnamese restaurants and gets phở with all sorts of gross animal bits in it, but I rely on home made vegetarian phở. Here's how I make it, step-by-step.

1. Gather your ingredients.
Here are the ingredients for the broth, minus the soy sauce, which didn't make it into the photo. I use this recipe as a base for my broth. I have no idea how traditional it is, but it sure is delicious! Never leave out the star anise - it will not smell or taste like phở without it. And I don't add salt, as the soy sauce is salty enough.

2. Char the veggies & spices.
Roughly chop the aromatics and throw them in a dry pot on medium high. Stir around a bit until they start to char and smell fantastic, then add the veggie broth (I do half broth and half water) and soy sauce.

3. Boil the broth.
Bring the broth to a boil to get all the flavour out of everything.

4. Prepare the protein.
My protein of choice for phở is tofu. This time I sliced extra firm tofu nice and thin and marinaded it in soy sauce, sri racha and rice wine vinegar. This is the first time I've cooked with tofu in a long time (other than the almond ricotta).

5. Prepare the noodles.
Boil some water and pour it over thin, flat rice noodles. Let them soak for a few minutes, but not for too long or they'll get mushy.

6. Prepare the accompaniments.
Green onions, enoki mushrooms (I couldn't find any nice bean sprouts, and the mushrooms made a nice substitution), lime wedges, tofu and sliced jalapeno. I forgot to pick up some basil, which is unfortunate, but not tragic. I did miss it, though.

7. Assembly, part 1.
Put some noodles in a bowl and ladle some strained broth over top.

8. Assembly, part 2.
Add the accompaniments to your taste. Here's my bowl, with jalapeno, tofu, lime, enoki mushrooms and sri racha.

9. Dig in!