Faux pho is perfect quick fix for weeknight dinner
Are you a fan of pho? If you’ve never had it, pho is a Vietnamese noodle soup. It consists of a mountain of slurp-worthy rice noodles mingling in an umami-rich soup with meat, such as chicken or beef, or tofu and vegetables.
The bonus is the garnishes — a garden basket of leafy herbs, chilies and sprouts to scatter over the top, with squirts of lime, hot sauce and hoisin for good measure.
Pho is intoxicatingly aromatic, and a perfect remedy to fight a cold or simply satisfy a craving for Asian spice and heat. Once you taste it, you’ll be hooked.
The key to an authentic pho lies in its broth, an involved affair best left to the weekend, when you have time to fill your home with the slow-cooking aromas of simmering chicken or beef, while the stock reduces to a flavorful, soul-satisfying intensity.
The challenge, though (as cravings go), is that sometimes you just want pho NOW, when it’s not the weekend, when you’ve just arrived home, when it’s an hour before dinner, only leftovers are in the fridge and the nearest Vietnamese takeout is in the next county.
Here is a solution: It’s an inauthentic version I call fast pho — or, better yet, faux pho. Instead of making the stock from scratch, I use a good-quality storebought stock, embellish it with aromatics, and add leftover cooked chicken or rotisserie chicken from the market. It’s done in an hour and is a perfect quick fix for a crave-satiating weeknight dinner.