Phở Bò) – Authentic Vietnamese Beef Pho Noodle Soup (
A steaming bowl of fragrant phở is thought to have almost magical properties — the ability to cure disease, soothe hangovers and restore the body’s balance.
Đang xem: Phở
Vietnam’s unofficial national dish is much loved, and widely traveled, available from Montreal to Melbourne and Moscow.
Phở is Vietnamese soul food, comfort food and often a Sunday morning ritual, when families gather to savor giant bowls of cinnamon and star anise-scented broth, soft rice noodles, slices of meat, onion, shallots and crunchy bean sprouts.
It’s a closely-kept Vietnamese secret that phở is more than just a noodle soup and a type of fresh rice noodle. There are many different types of phở, and some aren’t even soups.
Phở noodle soup originated from the north of Vietnam in the early 1900s, when Vietnam was part of French Indochina. The origins of phở are murky (unlike the soup itself) and slightly controversial.
Before the French came to Vietnam, beef was rarely eaten by Vietnamese people. Water buffalo was much more common, and cheaper.
One version of the phở creation story is that a Chinese wandering vendor began collecting discarded beef bones from French households and reusing them to make a soup featuring thin flat rice noodles called “fun” or “fan” in Chinese. He sold the soup from gánh phở, baskets hanging from shoulder poles, keeping his wares hot with a little brazier (feu is French for “fire”).
Some say the word phở is derived from the Chinese name of the noodles, or a Chinese beef noodle soup called ngưu nhục phấn which was popular in the north of Vietnam. Others say it’s a corruption of the French word feu, or a local version of the French beef and vegetable dish called pot-au-feu (pot on the fire).
Another, more politically acceptable story — because you don’t want your national dish linked to your former oppressors — is that the soup originated in the villages of Vân Cù and Dao Cù in Nam Dinh Province north of Hanoi. (China ruled Vietnam for about 1,000 years and the French ruled for about 100 years.) According to this non-French, non-Chinese phở story, the original phở vendors wore felt hats known as mũ phở, and sold their soup from the handy gánh phở shoulder poles.
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There’s also a story that phở evolved from a dish called xáo trâu, popular in the markets in Hanoi in the early 1900s. Xáo trâu was a water buffalo and noodle soup flavoured with onion, Vietnamese mint and starfruit.
Where ever it came from, the soup traveled south through central and south Vietnam. In the 70s and 80s phở left its country of origin, traveling across the seas with the Southern Vietnamese who fled Communist Vietnam’s economic hardship and political reprisals.
The Different Types of Pho
Phở Hà Nội (Hanoi-style pho)
Hanoi is the home of phở and in the north they keep it simple. The broth should be clear, with a thin layer of oil on top to give it a “silky” feel. The only accompaniments to the steaming bowl of soup are small dishes of bean sprouts, lime wedges and chopped chili.
Hanoians regard the original form of phở as a sophisticated dish. The broth should be clear and so full of flavor that nothing needs to be added. Hanoi phở cooks use more ginger and are more liberal with the salt than phở cooks in other parts of Vietnam. Hanoi phở noodles are also cut slightly fatter than Southern phở noodles.
Phở Sài Gòn (Saigon-style pho)
Southerners have “improved” on Hanoi-style phở with a range of condiments and baskets of fragrant fresh herbs. Of course, a Hanoian would say these vulgar and showy additions ruin the dish.
The main ingredients of Saigon-style phở are the same, although the broth is sweeter. (Southerners are famous in Vietnam for their sweet tooths!)
In the phở shops in Ho Chi Minh City, up to three kinds of chili sauce sit on the table to please the diner. There’s also sliced fresh chili, wedges of lime, fish sauce, hoisin sauce, pickled garlic, basil, spiky coriander/cilantro, rice paddy herb and a lemon-mint flavored herb known as Vietnamese balm.
Some Southerners like to prepare a dip of hoisin and chili sauce in a small dipping bowl to add flavor to the meat.
Phở Bò (beef pho)
The original and some say the best version of phở. There are many different types of beef phở, but on our Saigon Street Eats tours we recommend people start with phở tái. In this version, slivers of raw beef are placed in the bowl to be lightly cooked by the hot broth. This results in very tender meat.
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For more advanced phở tasting, you can order tái nạm (a mix of cooked and raw beef), gầu (fatty brisket) and gân (tendon). Phở bò viên (pho with beef balls) isn’t a very common option in Vietnam. It can be found, but this version is much more popular in the US, Canada and Australia.
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