faux pho fo' sho'

It's been a while! I'm back. Back in the UK, and back in the kitchen. I'm still a bit jet-lagged so if this doesn't make sense lets blame it on that ok?

My sister-in-law grew up eating this at home and she showed me how to make it when I came down with a vile cold to make me feel better (definitely worked). It's traditionally made with meat but we replaced it with tiny pieces of seitan that had been fried a little bit. You could use tofu, or leave the whole fake meat thing out completely.

This made enough for 4.

Pho spice kit

large pack of rice noodles

big bunch of coriander

big bunch of spring onions

big bunch of holy/thai basil

1 lime

some miso paste

vegetable stock

ground chili and garlic paste (or harissa)

seitan, tofu, or another fake meat choice (or not)

To make the broth you use one of these pho spice kits that you can pick up at any asian store. You could make it yourself if you happened to have a mesh bag and some whole spices, but it was about $2 so not too difficult to get. It's a mix of whole cinnamon, star anise, cardamom, cloves, fennel seed and coriander. You tip it all into the bag, pull the string tight and tie it up so nothing falls out.

Put it into a large pan and fill it right to the top with vegetable stock, then stir in 2 teaspoons of miso paste, just to give it the edge that you would have got if you made the meaty version with all the bone boiling and stuff.

Bring to the boil and leave it to simmer until half of the liquid has reduced. Yeah, a looong time. Probably about an hour. The house will smell amazing.

Grab a big bowl and put your dried rice noodles in. Pour hot (hot from the tap, not boiling hot from a kettle) water over them to re-hydrate them a little and put to one side.

Once the liquid has reduced by half, add a cup or so of water and turn the heat off. Grab all the green goodies and chop them. Finely chop the coriander, slice the spring onions, quarter the lime and just tear the leaves off the basil, or roughly chop them.

Take some of the noodles out of the bowl for yourself. Put a sieve over the pan of liquid.

Bring the liquid back to the boil, then put the noodles into the sieve. Carefully lower the sieve into the liquid to finish cooking the noodles. After about 30 seconds pull them out and pinch one to see if it's cooked enough for you.

Scoop the sieve out of the pan and tip the noodles into a deep bowl. Add as much coriander, spring onion and holy basil as you want, plus between 1/2 tsp and 1 tsp of the chili garlic mix (or harissa). 1/2 tsp is a spicy kick, 1 tsp is fiery.

Ladle on the pho stock until everything's floating and happy. You can add the seitan at this point too. If you were having tofu I'd probably try and cook it in the sieve with the noodles at the same time. Squeeze a quarter of the lime over right before tucking in.