"pho" news and stories

Each Thursday, we round up a selection of scrumptious links from our friends over at YumSugar. Here's what they've got cooking this week:

• If you still haven't recovered from the New Year's Eve hangover, try one of these salves.
• Kick off your post-holiday recovery with a winter salad.
• Do you dare cook plantains at home?
• A Mexican Christmas dinner is indeed traditional American.
• Start 2010 on the right foot with this mysterious piece of culinary tech.
• Will ramen finally graduate college, or will pho give it a failing grade?
• If you made a go-vegan resolution, why not munch on vanilla pound cake?

• Radio personality, cookbook author and self-proclaimed "culinary multitasker" Evan Kleinman carries serious clout in the LA food scene -- she recommended Loteria restaurant, it got packed; she initiated a "Pie a Day" project, Los Angelenos got cooking; she opened the LA chapter of Slow Food and they joined.
• Due to the Festival of Lights' origins, during which one day's worth of oil miraculously lasted eight, fried foods are a perennial staple during Hanukkah. To celebrate, the Times offers a collection of their seven best latke recipes.
• Used in a traditional fruit punch during the holiday season, tejocote was for years the most smuggled fruit into the U.S. border from Mexico. Farmer Jaime Serrato specializes in produce used in Latino cooking but illegal to import, so started growing the "crab-apple-like" fruit stateside five years ago and now has some 35 acres of it.
• In "35 Holiday Gifts to Buy, Give, Inspire, Make -- and Receive," the Times suggests everything from edible delicacies to kitchen gifts for cooks and more.
• Comically monikered eatery 9021Pho offers a "simple yet excellent" pho menu, which one diner calls "Vietnamese penicillin" -- and the writer praises for its "pristine freshness."
• Recipes: Peruvian Ceviche at Ciudad, Persimmon Pudding and Wild Rice Stuffing

• Be still my tastebuds! It's a pork-tasting showdown, to determine the best porcine rump.
  
• Recipes: Shellfish with Lemon Grass, Chili-Lime Crab Salad, and Smoky Pork Pappardelle.
• Ever wonder what exotic Japanese goods were worth your money? Check out this list.
• Many strong-tasting beers come with a big alcohol content. Not Brakspear Bitter.
• Yams make super-fast lightning bolts.
• South American wines worth mentioning: Chile's Terra noble Vineyard Selection 2007 Sauvignon Blanc, Santa Carolina Barrica Selections 2006 Petit Verdot, and Terra Andina Altos 2005 Syrah Cabernet Sauvignon, plus Argentina's Finca Flichman Expresiones Reserve 2006 Malbec Cabernet Sauvignon and Trapiche Broquel 2006 Malbec.
• Dig deeper and move beyond Vietnamese Pho.

Last week I mentioned that Pho (Vietnamese beef noodle soup) is one of my favorite cold weather foods. I love the warm, anise-scented broth next to the cool crunch of the fresh bean sprouts and herbs. However, it's one of those dishes that I think of as restaurant-only. I've never attempted to make it, mostly because I know the broth is fairly labor-intensive.

The level of work that it required didn't scare away Brys from Cookthink (it appears that he rarely shies away from complex cooking projects, a trait that endears his blogging to me) and it looks like he created something tasty and close to authentic (except, where's the star anise? *). For those of you who have never made consommé, his narration and pictures will help you navigate those tricky waters.

Me, I'm just looking forward to the next time I can get down to South Philly for a steaming bowl of Pho.

*Even though I read Brys' post three times, I missed the star anise until a commenter pointed it out to me. My mistake!

Source

Up until, oh, about six to eight months ago, I stubbornly refused to eat Vietnamese food. If everyone else in the party felt like Vietnamese, I'd surrender, but not quietly, and would make it clear throughout the whole meal how much I hated what we were eating. I don't like cilantro, I don't like its combination with lime juice (which is completely ignored when eating Mexican food, of course), and I mist certainly did not like fish sauce.

However, after all that "hmph!"-ing, I must shamefully admit now that I am quite addicted to pho. There is something about the steaming hot broth that is so paradoxically refreshing in the summer, and yet so warm and comforting in the fall and winter. Though I am not afraid of beef, I never order pho with any of the sliced rare beef combinations. It might have to do with the fact that the places I've eaten pho are always tiny little dives. But even if we were in the King's castle eating pho, i'd still order the tofu pho because I love it.