The Pho Cookbook: Easy to Adventurous Recipes for Vietnam's Favorite Soup and Noodles Hardcover – February 7, 2017

I am a lover of soup. I am also drawn by all the flavors of Vietnamese cooking. So, there was no way I was passing up a single-themed recipe book on pho. So glad that this book delighted me! So glad it exceeded my expectations!Just turning the introductory pages of this book, my senses were teased by the beautiful pictures, both action and still shots. (And there is a full page picture for every main recipe.) Pictures are colorful and vibrant—mouthwatering, too!Even an insert to help the reader correctly pronounce pho and a page on how to eat it.History of pho comes at the beginning of the book.One chapter covers thorough explanations and pictures of pho ingredients: Noodles, spices, aromatics, bottled seasonings, sweeteners, herbs and garnishes. You will learn to select the best bones and the proper cuts of meat.Plenty of helpful hints and tips. Do you ever read instructions and wonder why certain techniques or extra steps are included—and been left wondering? That will not happen with these recipes. You will learn how and why to char ginger and onions/shallots and parboil bones.There are simple and quick pho recipes, meatless pho, pressure cooker pho and classic recipes.Ingredients are not hard to find in well-stocked larger grocery stores. Of course, being near to an Asian market is helpful. But chicken, beef and pork meat and bones can be found almost everywhere. (But certain lamb cuts and bones, for instance, are harder for me to find at a regular grocery store in central and southern Texas, and an Asian market helps with that.)Be aware that ingredient lists can be somewhat long. Do not let that daunt you! Prep work is easy and not time consuming. I have learned that gathering up ingredients gets to be less and less of a chore the more often I do it. If you make pho often enough, the shelf ingredients will migrate together and you won’t be wasting time gathering them from here and there. Just get past that initial long list and it will soon become second nature.Each recipe provides the name of the pho in both Vietnamese and English. There is a short and interesting introduction and the reader will see approximate times for preparation. Recipes serve from 2 to 6, with most recipes serving 4 diners. Ingredient lists are concise and include both Imperial and Metric measurements. Instructions are broken into spaced paragraphs which help re-direct the eyes to where one left off. Instructions make sense and won’t leave an inexperienced cook wondering how to proceed.I do use both a large and a small pressure cooker on occasion, so I found an entire page discussion of the virtues of a pressure cooker vs. a stockpot to be quite interesting. (My point here, again, is that valuable and worthwhile tips and hints are included in this book.)I especially liked the chapter “Adventurous Pho”. It is designed to remind the reader that making pho is a creative process, and a recipe in a book is just a foundation, or a jumping off place, for experimentation. In this chapter there is a seafood pho and a lamb pho. One for rotisserie chicken, too! There are a few fried rice and fat rice recipes and a banh mi.There are also recipes for appropriate dipping sauces, bowl add-ins, fried bread sticks and a helpful pho spice blend. I was happy to see a recipe for homemade hoisin, a chile sauce and a sate sauce.Pho is more that noodles in broth. There is a chapter that contains a few stir-fried recipes, some pan fried recipes and deep fried dishes.A final chapter is all about pho sides: Pot stickers, salads, slaw, rice paper rolls, more sauces, drinks. Even a Pho Michelada!*I received a temporary download of this book from the publisher months before publication, so I have been working with it for quite a while. As you can see from the "Verified Purchase" tag up top of my review, I liked this book so much that I bought a hard copy to always have at hand.

The history is enjoyable, the classic versions of this amazing soup are well represented. Plus some hints at simplified processes to make the broth that makes pho so enchanting! Also, some other dishes that I would like to try.

This cookbook gives you all the information you need to make Pho. The author also describes the flavors that you are seeking when you season things. I love Viet food, but where I live, I can't get it. So I try to cook it. Her instructions help me season correctly instead of continually adding ingredients and never getting it right. Surprise - there are also numerous instances where pressure cooking directions are given Yipee!! If you're experienced with your IP, you shouldn't have a problem modifying her pressure cooker instructions. Usually an IP is 11 psi, and a pressure cooker (stove top) is 15 psi. It is truly one of the best cookbooks I have bought for myself.

What does this cookbook do right? A lot! The author starts out with a discussion of pho, its history, and what makes it such an important element of Vietnamese cuisine. I like that she includes the Vietnamese name of the dish alongside the English--you'd be surprised, but I own another Vietnamese cookbook that only lists the English equivalents and not the Vietnamese, so it's nice to see it included here. Then follows a listing of the key ingredients that comprise pho: bones, meat, noodles, spices, and garnishes. The recipes themselves are divided into "standard" pho (chicken, beef, and vegetarian versions are offered), "adventurous" pho including seafood and lamb, and other recipes that take the pho theme and flavor profile and expand it to other popular dishes, like banh mi and fried rice. There's also recipes for homemade hoisin and sate sauce, and Vietnamese coffee--not to be missed! I could live on that stuff.The recipes are quite good, and have convinced me that yes--it IS possible to make delicious pho right at home. The author offers two traditional long-simmered versions from Hanoi and Saigon, each with a slightly different focus and flavor profile, and quicker versions you can make in the pressure cooker or with a quick simmer on the stove. The Fuji apple that the author calls for really does provide just the right note of sweetness that was missing from my earlier efforts. It is interesting that the author starts her pho chapters with the chicken versions, rather than the beef--which dominates the menus at my favorite Vietnamese place down the street, and the chicken is secondary. I like that the author offers versions that you can make with store-bought broth and that there's considerable space devoted to optimizing pho for the pressure cooker, something that's become a staple in my household to get dinner on the table quickly for 2 little ones.I deducted a star for the layout and styling of this cookbook, which detracts from an otherwise 5-star read. IMO, the text is too small, and the visuals are uneven. There's many lovely photos of streetside cafes and kitchens in Vietnam, but not enough of the dishes themselves. When I'm cooking an unfamiliar cuisine, I like to have a visual cue to what the finished dish should look like. Some dishes are photographed, but others are not. IMO a cookbook that is calling for techniques that may be unfamiliar to the novice (or even experienced) home cook, like charring aromatics and skimming broth, should be replete with pictures to show you what to do. There are other curious design choices that end up detracting from the finished product. All of the pho spices are varying shades of brown, but they're photographed on a dark brown wood background, making them difficult to see. Likewise, the page that lists the rice noodles has them nicely arrayed...on a neutral background. The chart comparing stockpot vs. pressure cooker simmering has white text on a grainy peeling background, which makes it difficult to read. I suspect the stylist was going for a rustic look with the photos, which I guess makes sense because pho is a homey and comforting dish, but it doesn't really work.