Pho Noodle Soup

I just couldn't find a recipe that would work for me, so I decided to wing it. Usually I like to follow a recipe and adapt it, but all the recipes I found called for a bunch of ingredients I either don't have or don't like.

(Americanized) Vietnamese Pho Noodle Soup

Ingredients:
2 TBSP sesame oil
1 cinnamon stick, broken in half
1/2 medium yellow onion, sliced
3 cloves of garlic, sliced
1 TBSP whole pepper corns
1/2 tsp sea salt
10 thin slices of fresh ginger
2 carrots, julienned
2 mini bell peppers, thinly sliced
4 cups beef broth
1 bundle of rice noodles
cilantro, loosely chopped
lime, cut into wedges
1 red and 1 green chili peppers, minced
Sriacha or homemade hot chili pepper sauce

Directions:

Saute the cinnamon stick, onion, garlic, peppercorns, salt, ginger, carrots & bell peppers in sesame oil until soft, about 8 minutes. Add beef broth, bring to boil, simmer for 15 minutes. Meanwhile, bring a pot of water to boil, add the noodles and cook until soft..mine took 4 minutes.

Divide the noodles into 4 soup bowls, ladle the broth over the noodles, garnish with cilantro, lime, and hot chili sauce.



The verdict:
There is a lot I would do differently next time. For one, I would get some lemon grass in there, and the other is that I would strain out the ginger, peppercorns, & garlic from the broth after letting those simmer for a few minutes.....and then I would add the rest of the vegetables and let them simmer for 15 minutes or so.

Other than the annoyances of biting into the garlic, ginger, and especially those peppercorns, the flavor was really, really good!!! Even my kids liked it....course, they didn't add the hot sauce or chili peppers...those really added some major heat.