Making Pho at Home

Ever since Mr. Lilasaur and I have been living together, we have shopped at T & T almost every weekend. There was one particular time that I noticed a gentleman in front of us paying for Pho soup cubes, and that was when I realized I can probably do it at home.

Shopping list:

• Defrosted hot pot beef slices (we bought the rib eye ones)
• Pho soup cubes (I just chose the cheapest one at ~$2.50 for 4 cubes)
• Vietnamese rice noodles
• Bean sprouts
• Jalapeño (optional)
• Lime (optional)
• Onion and cilantros as garnish (optional)
• Sriracha
• Hoisin sauce

The process was super easy:

1. Boil 2 pots of water, one with enough water to cover the noodles by 2x and the other enough for the soup of however many people that is going to be eating.
2. Wash the bean sprouts and cut up the garnish, jalapeños, and lime while you wait for the water to boil.
3. Cook the noodles. 
4. Turn down the heat to about half and dump the cubes into the pot for the soup. How many cubes depends on how salty you want it.
5. Go back to Step 2 while you wait for the cubes to dissolve and noodles to cook.
6. Set the bean sprouts, jalapeño slices, and lime slices on a dish like how they do it at the restaurants.
7. When the noodles taste cooked, dump the noodles into a colander to wash the noodles with cold water and get rid of the starchiness. 
8. Before serving, boil the soup and heat up the noodles in a strainer SO THE NOODLES DON'T COOL DOWN THE SOUP. This is an important step that I missed and I had to microwave my soup to bring the temperature high enough to cook the other things.
9. Put the noodles, garnish, and then sliced hot pot beef into the bowl in this order, and pour the BOILING soup on top. Note: If the beef is not well defrosted, you should cook it slightly on the stove first.
10. Mix Sriracha & Hoisin sauce in a small dish for dipping, or if you like, put some in the soup. 
11. Start eating :D

Mr. Lilasaur and I have already started eating before I realized I need to snap a picture. I forgot about the garnish and pepper, but oh well, the taste was there.