Pho soup from scratch adventures :)))

Ginger, garlic and onion was dry fried till black and then peeled. Sweet lumps of goodness were produced.

This is my homemade flavour bomb. Star anise, cardamon, cassia bark, black pepper corns, dry fried and powdered. 

(I went looking for the dried sand worm but no one in the shops had heard of this)

 This is the stock boiling.- ox tail and broiled chicken- I tried for marrow and brisket but Sunday stocks were low.



To the left is the scum scooped from the top in an attempt to create a clean stock.

Stock must be sampled!

Some extra last minute flavours.

 Stock is strained through a muslin cloth.            

Approximately 5 hours later. This was not a stream lined process. For example, there is still the question of what to do with all the stock, as our fridge is quite small. Don't get me wrong, I love our fridge, but this is a lot of stock and a fridge can only take so much. Anyway, things were dribbled and spilt everywhere and there were debates about the best way to do things. My rice noodles ended up al dente instead of soft and the soup was eaten cold as opposed to the usual piping hot. 

It was delicious!!!!!

Final touches like temperature will be fixed for the next bowl (and I will be eating this for the next week)