Pho King
John would always tell people that I was a good cook. He loved to brag, telling everyone that I made most things from scratch. As true foodies, we watched all of the food network shows, taking notes about something new to try or somewhere new to travel. My food experiments weren’t always successful, especially early on when I wanted to make stuffed peppers without cooking the rice first (fair warning: raw rice is the worst for your teeth) or the time that I made homemade potato pancakes just as John’s parents unexpectedly pulled up in our driveway.
“I’m so excited for you to try them,” I told my mother-in-law, who was single-handedly responsible for all of the cooking skills that I ever learned.
I enthusiastically set the table for four instead of two, and both of my in-laws sat down to have a taste. Everyone had some pancakes on their plate. For this recipe I had peeled the potatoes, shredded them on one of those metal graters where you end up including knuckles in your meal, and then I had drained and dried the potatoes before adding the other ingredients and frying them in the pan. There we sat, forks in hand, ready to try a taste of my in-law’s homeland. They looked fabulous, but the expression on my father-in-law’s face after his first bite is something that I will never forget. He smiled and said, “It’s really good. A little salty,” as his eyes teared up and he reached for the glass of water. My heart sank as I quickly tasted my own pancake.
“Oh, my God!” I exclaimed, “What happened?.”
“I think it’s fine,” my mother-in-law said supportively. I loved that woman!
I jumped up from the table, grabbed my tiny box of recipe cards, “Where is it? What happened? I followed the recipe exactly,” I kept saying until finally I touched the recipe that I had been fumbling around for. It read…… Potato Pancakes. Ingredients: 4 large potatoes, grated. 1 yellow onion, grated. 1 egg, beaten. 1 teaspoon salt.
Wait.
“One TEASPOON? No, that can’t be right. It’s one tablespoon,” I said to myself.
Instant panic coursed through my body. I was frozen, standing in my kitchen, recipe card in hand, tablespoon caked with salt still sitting on the counter, family mumbling words I couldn’t understand from the kitchen table.
“Do you have any applesauce?” my father-in-law asked.
“Applesauce? Oh, I’m so sorry. These are terrible. Don’t eat them. I put in too much salt. I grabbed the tablespoon instead of the teaspoon,” I apologized.
“Don’t worry, honey. It happens to everyone,” my mother-in-law cooed. While they were the nicest words she could have said, I was pretty sure that it had never happened to her. Everything she cooked was terrific.
“Do you have any applesauce?” my father-in-law repeated. “It will help to cut the salt.”
I wanted to cry. My father-in-law was right, though, and soon we soaked each bite of salt laden potato pancakes in the applesauce and they tasted edible. With several glasses of water.
Decades later, after learning the finer arts of closely following a recipe, I decided to tackle Pho (pronounced FUH, which rhymes with duh ; at least that’s the way my research decided that it should be pronounced). Pho is world renowned as one of the best broth soups known to mankind. A product of Vietnam, the broth is cooked for hours, even days, and then the noodles, meat, and veggies are added to make the serving process almost instant. It’s classic. Simple. And with my pressure cooker, I found the perfect recipe that would make the broth easy to prepare. The only difficulty I had was in finding some of the ingredients.
I live in a small, rural community. Getting ingredients such as fish sauce, shirotaki noodles, fresh mint, and even whole coriander seeds can be difficult. It took several weeks and several different stores to gather all of my ingredients . Finally, it was time to cook the Pho. John was really excited. He had seen an episode on Food Network that bragged about the amazing flavor of Pho, and as a recent soup lover, he told me that this was going to be amazing. Because, “You are a really good cook. Everything you make tastes amazing,” he told me. I decided that this was not a good time to remind him of the potato pancake failure.
I toasted the spices. The house smelled wonderful. My youngest, curly haired child even came up and commented about how good it smelled. Clearly, I was off to a good start. Next I sauteed the onion and ginger, then seared the meat, and finally put all of the ingredients into the pressure cooker, carefully tying up the loose spices into a piece of cheesecloth and tossing the bundle into the liquid. I closed the lid, set the timer, and waited. After several minutes the most enticing smell began to curl it’s way into every corner of the house. Each breath in was filled with the warm smell of beef and spices. After the pressure cooker had finished, I released the pressure and carefully opened the pot. John and the girls were standing next to me as the lid steamed and dripped condensation back into the thick, aromatic broth. I could tell; it was going to be good!
The pressure cooker was filled with about 8 quarts of concentrated broth. I carefully strained the liquid and added 6 cups to a stock pot, and added some more water to dilute it as the directions had told me to do. All of the meat, noodles, fresh herbs, and bean sprouts were waiting to be instantly cooked by the simmering broth. I filled a bowl with a selection of raw ingredients, and with the family watching, I dramatically poured the broth over the top as everyone watched the meat instantly change color as it cooked. “Ohhhhhh!” was the response from my family. They were clearly impressed. Finally we were able to sample the food that had smelled so amazing for so much time. We dipped our spoons into the pool of dark liquid and slurped a bit of the hot broth, being careful to keep a cold glass of water nearby just in case it burned our tongues. We sipped and stared at each other. We sipped again, and asked each other, “What do you think?” Not the reaction I was hoping for.
It had no taste! Of course I immediately jumped up from the table and scanned the ingredient list. Fish sauce! I forgot the fish sauce! “Do you think the fish sauce will add THAT much flavor?” John asked me. Not the strongest supportive comment that he could have given.
“I don’t know. I’ve never had fish sauce before,” I said as I carefully measured the ingredient. Fish sauce seemed like a dangerous ingredient. One that you would want to make sure you erred on the side of caution and possibly used less than the recipe called for. I made sure to use the correct measurement, remembering the salty potato pancakes. Then, I brought the broth back up to a simmer and we tried again. Ingredients into bowl, simmering broth poured with artistic flair to show off how the meat instantly cooked, and we tasted again.
Nothing. No one said anything. Not a word. Then, finally, after what felt like a half an hour, John commented.
“Blech! What is this? People actually like this? I’m sorry honey, but this is Pho-King awful!” John said as he spat his soup back into the bowl. This was undoubtedly one of the best puns of his lifetime, and sadly, he was right. Our laughter opened the floodgates and John began what seemed like a ten minute dissertation using Pho-King in every possible sense. “People actually LIKE this Pho-King stuff? It’s the worst Pho-King soup I’ve ever eaten! You’re not going to Pho-King make this again, are you? Do we have to eat all eight Pho-King eight quarts of it?”
Well, we didn’t. I dumped the whole Pho-King thing out, and have forever wondered where I went wrong. Since then I have watched as several friends of mine challenged themselves to making Pho. I offered my fish sauce, but they had found their own. I waited patiently to hear from each of them, after cooking, to see if their soup tasted as Pho-King bad as mine did.
Turns out, their Pho wasn’t so Pho-King bad. They loved it!
Clearly, there is work to be done before I master this recipe!
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