Chay Pho (Vietnamese vegetarian noodle soup with tofu)

Ate something similar to this in Laos and damn tasty it was too! It's better known, though, under the name of its Vietnamese counterpart - pho. Rice noodles in a fragrant broth. 

Went a little over budget, basically because ingredients like tofu and rice noodles are fairly expensive here in Poland...

Enjoy!

Serves: 4
Cost per person: 5.50 zl (0.95 GBP)

What do we need?

- a pack of tofu
- a leek
- a white radish or kohlrabi or other such vegetable
- a carrot or two
- an apple
- an onion or two
- 2 inches of ginger sliced up
- salt and sugar
- 1 piece of cinnamon
- 1 star anise
- 2-3 cloves
- 1 tsp pepper corns
- 2 black cardamons
- rice noodles
- mung bean shoots
- fresh coriander
- 1-2 green chillies deseeded 
- 1 lime
- soy sauce
- spring onion chopped

It looks daunting, but it can be broken down into convenient stages.

Stage One - the stock

1. Dry roast the onion, ginger and spices in a pan on low-medium heat until the onion starts to brown nicely (15 mins approximately)

2. In the meantime, chop up the stock veg (and apple).

3. Wack them into a large pan and cover with boiling water

4. Salt and sugar in

5. Check those dry roasted onions. Get them in!

6. Cover and simmer for around 75 minutes.

7. Drain the liquid through to a new pan. Discard the veg

8. You'll end up with a fragrant light brown liquid.

So, you can do this the day before. Makes life easier.

Stage Two - the tofu

1. Cut up the tofu and leave on kitchen roll to draw out some of that moisture.

2. Now, that's not dry enough. You need to put these pieces on a plate (round the outside rim works best - the water then drains to the centre) and microwave in 3 minutes stages, checking dryness after each stage. You're looking for a fairly dry result without massacring the tofu.

3. Oil in wok - heat up to high. Tofu in. Fry for a couple of minutes.

4. Splash in a good amount of soy sauce to season the tofu. Cook down for another 30 seconds. Take off the heat.

Stage Three - the rice noodles

1. Soak them in cold water for 10 minutes

2. Boil in salted water for 5 minutes or until reasonably soft (or al dente). Drain

Stage Four - assembly

1. Get the bean shoots, lime, chilli, spring onions and coriander on a plate. Looks like I took the photo before I added the spring onion and coriander. Trust me - they were there in the end!

2. Put some noodles in the bottom of a deep bowl.

3. Add around 6 pieces of tofu per bowl.

4. Ladle over the broth (obviously this needs to be reheated for this stage)

5. Add a handful of the raw stuff - spring onion, bean shoots, coriander, chilli - and squeeze a little lime over

Eat!

Costing:

- a pack of tofu: 8 zl
- veg for broth: 4 zl
- rice noodles: 4 zl
- mung bean shoots: 4 zl
- 1 lime: 1 zl
- the rest: 1 zl

Total: 22 zl
Serves: 4
Cost per person: 5.5 zl