Beef Short Rib-Vegetable Pho, an affordable luxury

🍲 doable in about 1 hour and rivals the pros

What a week it’s been, yes? Here in the States, it seems like so much is in the air, politically, economically, socially. You may be excited, anxious, or in between. You’ve also had your day-to-day lives to lead too!

In my little corner, I’ve been interviewed by five reporters this week about chef Charles Phan mostly, but also Vietnamese food trends in America. I worked with chef Pim for three days to square away over sixty recipes for our volunteer testers, on the Cooking Thai book project. Phew. That’s a major accomplishment in the journey to making a cookbook. Every single recipe will be tested by someone else because that’s how solid cookbooks are made.

But, I managed to squeeze in a new pho recipe. Well, it’s not totally new. I’ve been working on this recipe on and off for years. It was originally developed for Ever-Green Vietnamese but the book already had three pho recipes (2 vegetarian, and 1 chicken pho). Plus, I’d written The Pho Cookbook so how much more pho could I offer folks?

Well, pho continues to evolve and my love for Vietnam’s national dish is endless.

What’s up with my pho spelling? Phở officially became part of the Oxford and Merriam-Webster dictionaries in 2006 and 2014, respectively. So, it’s fine to omit diacritics when spelling pho, unless it’s for something in Vietnamese.

My initial aim with this short rib-vegetable pho was to leverage the power of produce to create beefy pho that used less beef. It needed to still satisfy with lip smacking flavor. Beef prices were increasing before the pandemic but since then, they’ve gone up more. Currently in Little Saigon, a so-so bowl of pho is about $13 and a good bowl hovers around $20!

Given all that, I circled back to this short rib-vegetable pho to test if it was worthy of your kitchen. It is.

Why make pho at home when there are plenty of pho shops and instant pho options?

Because you know what went into your DIY broth. It will always taste better because it’s fresh.

My short rib pho gets its depth of flavor from a smallish amount of flavorful beef and a variety of vegetables. The vegetables add minerality and umami depth to the earthiness of the beef.

Why make pho with short ribs?

• It’s less fussy. And when there’s a short rib sale, one batch of this pho for four costs less than one fancy bowl of pho!

• English-cut short ribs have a great balance of fat, lean, and chew – the various textures that many people look for in a splendid bowl of beef pho.

• The meat from short ribs tastes super beefy, like brisket, but without brisket’s stringiness. Short ribs taste luxurious.

• Short rib’s intense flavor means you don’t need marrow bones in the pot.

• No marrow bones mean the broth will be very clear.

• This less fussy path yields a fabulous bowl of phở bò chín (cooked beef pho).

I make this pho in a pressure cooker (nồi áp xuất in Vietnamese) to create extra intense flavor fast, but you can prepare it using a regular stockpot.

Here’s a summary video of how it this short rib-vegetable pho comes together:

Below you’ll find:

• A recipe in text and PDF.

• Instructions that cover making the broth in an electric pressure cooker/multicooker (e.g., Instant Pot), stovetop pressure cooker (what I used in the video), and a stockpot.

• Pho video pointers

• A bunch of tips and tweaks on ingredients and experimenting with the broth