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Pho Ingredients and Garnishes

Thumbnail image for Vietnamese Pho With No Monosodium Glutamate (MSG)? Sure You Want It That Way?

Vietnamese Pho With No Monosodium Glutamate (MSG)? Sure You Want It That Way?

November 17, 2010

Many people have problems with consuming monosodium glutamate, or MSG, in their foods. Chinese cuisine and many other restaurant foods are notorious for having lots of MSG in them. Restaurant pho is no different. In fact MSG use in many pho restaurants can be dominant and unmistakable. Here are some real insights about MSG in Vietnamese pho, from a roundtable of food industry experts. Vietnamese Pho with no MSG? Sure you want it that way?

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Thumbnail image for Want the Lime Taste in Your Pho? Don’t Serve It Like This

Want the Lime Taste in Your Pho? Don’t Serve It Like This

November 5, 2010

There are some great pho broths out there. Some are good enough so you don’t even have to enhance with fish sauce or hoisin sauce. Regardless of the quality, though, I must have my squeeze of lime juice in my pho. Unfortunately, for such a simple thing, there are more than a few pho photos out there showing lime and pho in some deplorable relationship. Yuck. Check out these sins.

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Thumbnail image for An Injustice to Pho: Rachael Ray’s “Phunky BBQ Pho with Pork” Recipe

An Injustice to Pho: Rachael Ray’s “Phunky BBQ Pho with Pork” Recipe

October 8, 2010

The dish/program name itself, Phunky BBQ Pho with Pork, is enough to send chills up my spine. What’s really annoying to me is the casualness that these inaccuracies are presented by Rachael Ray and her program. The show, and Rachael Ray herself, not showed total disrespect to Vietnamese (and Thai) foods, but also to their own audience’s intelligence, though I could be wrong here since there are 578 Facebook Likes for the recipe as of the date of this post.

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Thumbnail image for Vegetarian Pho or Pho Chay – a Tasty Healthy Vegan Choice

Vegetarian Pho or Pho Chay – a Tasty Healthy Vegan Choice

September 22, 2009

Vegetarian pho, or phở chay, has never been about healthy eating in Vietnam. Now with pho very popular in the U.S. and the population more conscious about leading a healthy lifestyle, it’s only natural that restaurants offer vegetarian pho or pho chay on their menus. Temple chay foods are true vegetarian and healthy, but once vegan foods get to the restaurants, chefs spice things up to attract paying customers.

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Thumbnail image for Quoc Viet Foods® Steadily Growing and Bringing Vietnamese Pho to the Masses

Quoc Viet Foods® Steadily Growing and Bringing Vietnamese Pho to the Masses

September 1, 2009

Quoc Viet Foods® specializes in manufacturing Vietnamese pho soup bases and other seasonings. The company is the first to use modern technologies to convert the traditional Vietnamese pho into convenient soup base form. If you’re looking for a quick pho recipe to make your own pho in less than an hour, it’s possible with pho products from Quoc Viet Foods. It’s a great option without giving up authenticity, taste and quality. Read more on how Quoc Viet Foods began its journey to bring pho to the mass.

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Thumbnail image for Thai Basil – The Siam Queen Takes Her Place in Vietnamese Pho

Thai Basil – The Siam Queen Takes Her Place in Vietnamese Pho

August 27, 2009

The basil family of herbs is one of the oldest and most commonly used herbs in the world. The variety known as Thai basil is no exception; it is utilized so extensively in Indian and Southeast Asian dishes that it is practically considered a vegetable rather than a simple herb. In Vietnamese pho, Thai basil has a prominent place on the plate of garnishes that are served along with the steamy bowl of broth, meat and noodles, giving a peppery and sweet taste at the same time.

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Thumbnail image for Cilantro – Man’s Oldest Herb a Must-Have Ingredient in Vietnamese Pho

Cilantro – Man’s Oldest Herb a Must-Have Ingredient in Vietnamese Pho

July 14, 2009

In Vietnamese pho, you are likely to find chopped cilantro blanched by the broth in your bowl. Many pho recipes that you will find either in Asian cookbooks or on the Internet also recommend using cilantro as an important ingredient. Cilantro in fact has a long history of its own. Cilantro never takes the center stage, but you can’t have pho without it.

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Thumbnail image for Banh Pho (Bánh Phở) – It’s All About the Square Noodles

Banh Pho (Bánh Phở) – It’s All About the Square Noodles

June 13, 2009

Why is banh pho so important in a bowl of pho? One can say that pho is not pho without the correct banh pho rice noodles in it. You can eliminate the garnishing, but you cannot take banh pho noodles out of a proper bowl of pho. And you can’t have just few strands of banh pho floating in the broth, you have to have a whole lot of them. Here’s the run-down on the importance of banh pho in the pho dish.

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Thumbnail image for Quick Beef Pho Recipe with Quoc Viet Foods’ Pho Soup Base

Quick Beef Pho Recipe with Quoc Viet Foods’ Pho Soup Base

June 6, 2009

Authentic beef pho recipes call for cooking the broth over a period of 3 or more hours. Properly done, this will get you the best pho broth the way it’s intended to be. But for those who want to take a shortcut and shave off a few hours, Quoc Viet Foods Beef Flavored “Pho” Soup Base is a great option. They’ve achieved converting the traditional Vietnamese products (including pho) into a convenient form.

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Thumbnail image for Bean Sprouts – Adding Crunch to the Savory Pho

Bean Sprouts – Adding Crunch to the Savory Pho

May 19, 2009

Nowadays you can’t order pho without the plate of garnishing, which invariably include bean sprouts. Fans of Vietnamese pho have come to expect bean sprouts with their pho. Some even think that pho looks quite forlorn and incomplete without it. Pho and bean sprouts may look like an odd couple, but many pho eaters add them purely out of habits because it’s just natural to eat them together.

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