[Sca-cooks] TRYING TO FIGURE OUT A BROTH

[Robyn.Hodgkin at affa.gov.au]

One of my favourite dishes of all time is one made by a local Vietnamese restaurant here in Canberra. Pho Tai (I hope that spelling is correct) is a rare beef noodle soup.

You are served with a big bowl of fragrant soup with lots of noodles and  thin slices of raw beef added just before serving; these cook in the soup as you eat.  On the side you are given a dish with beansprouts, lemon wedges, vietnamese mint, and fresh-sliced tiny chilis.

A pair of chopsticks, a soup spoon and a box of tissues take up the rest of the table... you add your own blend of bits and pieces to the soup and then dive into pure gastronomic ecstacy.

Thats it!!! I just have to have Vietnamese for dinner tonight!

I have no idea what is in the fragrant ever-so-slightly-sweet broth, but it is soooooo good!  If you can tell me what their secret is, I will be SO happy...  I get the feeling there is star anise in there, but only a touch... the closest I can come to describing it is that its kind of like someone has made a soup including Japanese pickled ginger.

Kiriel