Video Pho - The best recipe for beef Dear readers, here finally, after three years of listing and teasing, the recipe as requested, one that can make one of the best Pho (pronounced Pheeu) beef there is. No less. And I can say without false modesty, because it is not mine. She has this grumpy Viet de la Rue Claude Bernard, which had opened in hiding the most complete, behind shelves of videos (he had hijacked the lease of his shop, video rental), and two steps of the Treasury public, this little diner than a dozen seats, where he served for over 10 years, the best Pho in the capital. The ingredients, techniques used, the deployed application but also the products of extraordinary quality, everything was carefully planned, with the seriousness so typically Vietnamese, to produce this alchemy, this unique and delicious bouilllon, which unfortunately n is no longer available to the public today.
I knew the greasy spoon in the 90's when my mother made me discover, while I was living alternately in the 13th and the 5th arrondissement. I did not immediately understand how the experience was exceptional, the idea has made sure to As I got off bowls of soup. It was just for me the best Pho Paris, but also the most expensive and most complicated taste: The grumpy old Vietnamese, despite the growing success of his Pho, did absolutely not enlarge his establishment: He just wanted to pay studies of his son and help him settle in medicine in him buying a medical practice. Still grumpy, still grumpy, but still rigorous and painstaking, he took pleasure in making his famous rarer soup: It might serve a given number of bowls per day, and how many times did I get too later and could hear me slide without interrupting service, there was nothing! You can imagine the frustration for me that I had 35 minutes to type plugs. Needless to say it does not allow you Reservat bowls, even though he had great affection for us regular customers. While he did not open until noon and closed Sunday, he decided to close on Saturdays and Mondays. And when we insist he opened more often, he threatened us squarely to close another day in the week! Until the day he announced that his son was installed, it would simply close the restaurant to the public, but that eventually and only by appointment, it could maintain a small business for the faithful of the faithful!
In anticipation of the closure announcement, he began to distribute to one day who wanted the recipe for Pho Video!. I kept a few copies in my possession, but obviously messy as I am, I was quick to lose it. There I quickly converted my friends and colleagues and when we had our office landscaping job at the other end of Paris, I frequently organize a small equipped believers, ready to go through Paris' s sit in what looked like (already) a waiting room of a medical practice liability.
And then one day I asked my colleague Jan if he would join us for a ride Video Pho, told me when, on a detached tone that I will never forget that the Pho was closed Video "because of death '." At first, the lightness of tone made me think of a joke in poor taste, but we had to quickly get to the evidence, we resign because of Pho Video, it there would be longer.
This weekend there, after all returned home in search of precious slips recovered a few years aupravant, I remember my parents returned home and have searched my "archives" stashed in the basement, alas without success. Knowing that my mother, my sister, the family had to have received a copy, I asked them all to make a big effort to put my hands on it. Alas, it is a flaw we all share in this family, it is the sense of the mess, and it was not there that the recipe was revived. No, I had to wait six months to the day of my birthday, my good old Jack, who, without being of the family (though), shared the same defect congenital, but who initiated scholar, had literally made an art of living. In short, for my birthday, the most unlikely of archivists, Jackie, gave me the precious copy he had retained, he who never approaches a pot, except to empty it.
me who loves to read the signs of destiny in my life, I took the measure of it, and I hurried to gather the most loyal members of this congregation Video Pho, the divine rescucitation for broth, following very carefully indications of the precious manuscript. When
after ten hours of preparation (followed by 2 hours of cleaning the kitchen by my wife who was moderately appreciated) we were a dozen gathered around the table, get drunk literally incomparable aroma that rose from each bowl, we entered into communion in a memorable tasting, a true ADE (After Death Experience).
Here, the history of this recipe, which I now deliver you after this long preamble. I warn you, the recipe is monstrous, the recipe is complicated, requires equipment and raw materials difficult to obtain because it can be prepared in large quantities (not less than 12 bowls). Moreover, it begins with these lines, I quote:
"If you do not plan to use at least 10 pounds and 2 pounds of bone plate of ribs, I would advise you not to make Pho. But this soup that I qualify infusion of bone (10 pounds for 12 bowls), holds many lessons you can use in other recipes. Personally, I learned the recipe already posted the Chicken Pho, which is easier to achieve, even in what quantities.
===> To follow the recipe is here Finally, if this recipe seems too complicated, there is the light version published here
, the chicken or the chicken, which I published here:
Pho recipe chicken
Update 26 January 11: How to get 10 kilos of bones?
Many readers ask me how I am to find 10 pounds of bone. Certainly not the butcher who charges across the tranquil 5 € / kilo, for a product that ends up in the trash in 75% of last cas.Le Pho only cost me 12 Euros in bone marrow.
Explanation: I plugged
Hallal butcher from whom I have some lamb merguez and habits aside, telling me put every Tuesday (day of arrival of the meat) a few kilos of bones in the freezer, and call me when it came to 10 kgs. It does not even make me pay! In return, I pledge to buy from him the rump and rib dishes. My former butcher, the French installed rue des Pyrenees, was charging me € 1 per kilo, which would, but I have not yet discussed with the new owner. The other day as I had taken too late, he was only 5 pounds. So I was at the butcher's Asian side of Tang Frères, where they sell packages of 2 € / kg. And now, 5 + 3x2 = 11 kgs, which allowed me, fills luxury, you can select one by one skilled bones to make the trip! So
advice: make your smile at the incongruity of butcher your infusion of bone, it will see you differently and who knows, maybe it will be the beginning of a long friendship. Know when even once boned carcasses, most of the bones end up in the trash. Finally, the butchers are much easier to "soften" the issue of bone marrow in summer and winter season when the pots fire has passed.
In conclusion: make buddy-buddy with your butcher, or wait for the summer to make Pho Video!
Expe-Assessment Mission 2010 and vows of Haiti! 
