Vietnamese Pho

The October 2009 Daring Cooks’ challenge was brought to us by Jaden of the blog Steamy Kitchen. The recipes are from her new cookbook, The Steamy Kitchen Cookbook.

So what is Vietnamese Pho? Well, it’s like the most insanely delicious noodle soup popular in Vietnam. The broth is simmered for hours and hours . Other accompaniments include ribbons of rice noodles, fresh herbs like cilantro or basil, a wedge of lime or lemon, fresh bean sprouts and fresh sliced chilies if desired. I think I had a version of it in a vietnamese restaurant on a recent trip to Vegas and really liked the clean and pure taste of the Pho.

What makes Pho so different than any other type of noodle soup is the spices that go into the simmering broth. Warm spices like coriander, star anise, cloves, cinnamon, fresh ginger transform an ordinary broth into a very authentic Vietnamese Pho.

I did make the long version i.e making home made stock albeit the vegetarian version including onion , celery and carrot in olive oil with the spices mentioned above.

Sauteed small pieces of tofu and mushrooms in a little oil and added to the broth. Served with rice noodles,coriander,lime and chilli sauce. A warmth-inducing evening meal !

I didn't try the wantons as we are getting a bit too frequent on desserts around our part of the world.. keeping for a later day..

Theme of the month...

Theme of the month seems to be tardiness :( .. not intentional..but I just don't know where the time is flying .. Summer is over already ?? September is more than half gone too ?? Did I skip some days or weeks in between a-la time-traveller's-wife ?

Neway,last couple of months I've been part of this wonderful group which combines my love for books and food together - This book makes me cook , but for some reason or the other I have not able to contribute to it.. Last month, they announced reading 'Pomegranate soup' , which I promptly ordered from my library, got it and read in an easy read - very light but heart warming book about 3 sisters all the way from Iran to Europe on their culinary journey...and all other filmy elements within - like the necessary villain, a beautifully vague hero , a cause-bearer...but all in good fun..

I also managed to make this simple but delicious soup from the recipe in the book, but never got around to posting it..so without further ado:

This is a simple soup made of olive-oil fried onions cooked with red masoor daal for about an hour or so with simple spices....you think Ive forgotten them ? Actually I have .. maybe I will get the book back and check and update..maybe not..but the soup was good! I havnt forgotten that :D

Friday evening healthy cooking..

As Friday evening approaches our household , all the healthy eating of the week seem to fly out of the windows..the chips..the dips :)

Im trying to find a healthy balance here and so I thought I would make a nice hearty soup for the evening...upon raiding my pantry I found some green split peas lying since a while..I have no idea what to make of it...and then I remembered that I was browsing through Fatfree Vegan Kitchen and found this split-pea soup recipe and I got a nice , thick, healthy soup for my friday evening !

And thats my entry for the Tried and Tasted hosted at Holy Cow ! ..

I also want to mention that Im a big follower of Susan's blog , its on my feeds and I love her recipes and photographs..I look forward to doing some more trial from her blog :)

A summertime soup

I cooked up a nice , light soup today, which was taught in the Heidi Billotto cooking class 'All Vegeterian' that I had taken last month. It was my first cooking class and it was a nice learning experience and I so want to take the Peter Reinhart's bread making course at Johnson & Wales..its a bit expensive though and very infrequent so I will need to keep an eye out on that one..

So , anyway the soup :
4 cups of good stock (I used mushroom demi-glace) with a pinch of saffron
1/2 tsp red pepper
2 tsp crushed fennel
A handful of grape tomatoes , halved (I just had them fresh from market today morning!)
A bunch of russian kale (from the original recipe) or spinach
A cup of canellini beans (can substitute with orzo or rice)
A cup of edamame beans
salt to taste

Bring the stock to boil and add the tomatoes, fennel seeds and red pepper. Cook for another 15 mins and add spinach to wilt. Add canellini bean and edamame and salt to taste. Simmer for another 10 mins and the soup is ready !

Serve with some bread crostini , bread slices topped with goat cheese and toasted !
Yummy and nutritious to core !!