The Healing Powers of Vietnamese Pho

Getting back on track with eating healthy again (I swear I'm off my processed food kick, finally) and refocusing on fixing my darn gallbladder through diet I have been cooking up a storm of healthy, GB friendly, yeast reducing (thanks to the antibiotics for my tooth), and anti-inflammatory foods. All things tummy friendly and to stop the nausea I have redeveloped thanks to said antibiotics that have jacked with my stomach. OK, maybe I hit the sugar a little too much while I was on the antibiotics to, but that's in the past so we aren't going to talk about it. My tooth feels better an I know I had to take them while waiting a MONTH to get the root canal, but man, I hate the side effects of that stuff! Anyway, I'm refocused and trying to heal the damage the antibiotics did to my tummy flora and overall state of well-being.

In comes my all-time favorite healing food. During grad school, my buddy Jonghun introduced me to Vietnamese food. A friend of his from back home (Korea) owned a restaurant in the North neighborhood of Chicago that we lived in and he insisted I needed to try it. Being a foodie, I obliged and told him to pick something out from the menu that I wouldn't be allergic to. he told me that it is the Vietnamese equivalent to chicken noodle soup.

I would say it's better than that. Much, much better.

Experiencing heaven at first taste I subsequently dragged my husband (then humble fiancee) to that restaurant for Pho Bo every weekend for the next year. I also dragged anyone else willing to try it out or that I forced to make try it. They all fell in love with it the same as me. I was such a regular at the restaurant that the waiter joked with my husband and I every week if we were going to try something different. We did try one other dish, Tai Tai, that we loved, but it was only an occasional change up, we ultimately always came back to the Pho.

So, why is it so much better than chicken noodle soup? The seasonings for one. The broth flavored with cinnamon, cloves, cardamom, ginger, anise, onion, beef, and chicken stock. Just the smell of it cooking in the kitchen is enough to make you feel better.

Then, once you are done cooking the stock you pour it over rice noodles, basil, cilantro, jalapeno, lime, green onions, bean sprouts and flanked steak that was cooked to a medium rare in the stock itself.

The broth finishes cooking everything and you are left with the most aromatic and soothing soup you have ever tasted. You dip the beef in a combination of Hoisin and Sriracha sauces, mixed to your preference. It is heaven in a bowl and you immediately begin to feel detoxified and rejuvenated by the soup.

There are many other variations of Pho, though ours will forever remain the Pho Bo, or beef version. My husband adored the seafood version at the little Vietnamese restaurant in Chicago, but unfortunately the owners moved back to Korea and it no longer exists. That was a very sad day in our household when we found out it closed.

So, I leave you with pictures of this healthy and tasty soup. I could bore you with the details of what makes it so healthy and good for you, but I will spare you and let the pictures speak for themselves. If you want to try it out, I follow the recipe in Quick and Easy Vietnamese, which is a fabulous cookbook I highly recommend. Vietnamese food is extremely healthy and these recipes are no exception (and for those of you with nut allergies, just leave the nuts out of the recipes, they are just garnishes anyway).