Pho

Prep Time: 10-15 minutes                Cook Time: 5-15 minutes               Add to MyFitnessPal

I grew up eating southeastern asian cuisine. Despite mom's affinity for McD's, I learned to eat with chopsticks long before I could handle a fork and spoon. And of all the foods I ate, none tastes like home quite like a steaming bowl of pho. But those stinking rice noodles have WAY too many carbs for my diet, and the broth seemed impossible to make (or so I thought.) I spent three years trying to perfect pho but could never make it like Ngdom used to when I was a little. Not, anyway, until now.

Poor photography, VERY good eating

What's most fascinating to me about this recipe is how the broth changes drastically when you add the final ingredients. It goes from being hearty, salty and savory to an herbaceous, almost refreshingly light broth with all the comfort and weight of its original form. If you want Pho but don't want to deal with making the broth, you can always use a pre-made beef stock and play with the seasonings. It won't be anywhere near as good, but it will pass if you're willing to play with it enough using fish sauce & cinnamon.

Oh, and you DO get noodles. I use noodles from my local Asian Food Center (yes, that's the name of the chain) made of Konjac starch - the pulverized root-ball of a lily-like plant that grows in subtropical & tropical asia. When hydrated, the starch forms a lovely noodle-consistency gel that is 90-some-odd percent water and the starch is completely undigestible. It's a staple in southeast asian cuisine, and happens to fit perfectly into my lifestyle. Just don't try to use them in place of other noodles - they're only a good substitute for rice noodles.

Ingredients:
Pho Broth - 1 cup
Konjac Noodles - 1/4 cup (you can often find these at safeway as Shirataki Noodles)
SUPER thinly sliced beef (flank, sirloin, or round) - 2 oz (I often use goat and it's great)
Lime - 1/4
Chili pepper, sliced crosswise - 1 (optional)
Thai basil (it's purple), fresh - 1 oz (use green if you have to)
Soy or Mung bean sprouts - .5 oz
Yellow Onion - .5 oz
Sriracha sauce - 1 Tbsp (optional, I just stick with the chili)

Preparation:
Bring your broth back up to a boil.

To slice your meat, it helps to freeze it for 15-20 minutes prior to slicing, you want it nearly transparent by the way. Or your local asian grocer might sell "hot pot beef" pre-sliced. It works very well.

Just be sure to leave out the fingers

Set your bowl next to the stove. Add noodles, then sliced beef, then onion. As soon as the broth comes to a boil, pour over beef and noodles. Eat immediately, adding basil, sprouts, lime, and chilis (or sriracha) as you desire.

The photo is misleading - I often use the juice from a whole lime - only changes the caloric content by 5 cal

Nutrition (per bowl):
Calories: 195
Fat: 6 g
Carbs: 8 g
Protein: 22 g
Sodium: 545