Oxtail Pho
A comforting bowl of homemade oxtail pho with tender beef, fragrant spices and a rich, flavourful broth. It takes some preparation, but using a pressure cooker makes the long cooking time much easier to fit around a busy day.
A comforting bowl of homemade oxtail pho with tender beef, fragrant spices and a rich, flavourful broth. It takes some preparation, but using a pressure cooker makes the long cooking time much easier to fit around a busy day.
* Keep the garnishes simple: If your kids aren’t interested in onions, coriander or lime, you can leave them out. The oxtail and broth are delicious on their own.
* Noodles: Use your children’s favourite rice noodles if they have a preference.
* Broth: Taste the broth before serving and adjust the seasoning if you’re serving it to younger children.
* Oxtail: Remove the meat from the bones before serving to younger kids and check carefully for small bones.
Pressure cooker: This is the gadget that makes this recipe much more manageable for me. I can get the broth started, leave it to cook and continue with school runs, errands or other things I need to do.
No pressure cooker: You can make this on the stove, but you’ll need to allow considerably more time for the oxtail to become tender.
Garnishes: Don’t feel like you need to prepare every garnish. When I’m really busy, the oxtail, noodles and broth are enough for me. The onions, coriander and lime are lovely additions but can be skipped when you’re short on time.
Spices: I recommend dry toasting the spices first because it brings out their fragrance before they go into the broth.
Fat: Oxtail naturally releases quite a bit of fat. I trim the excess before cooking and you can also skim additional fat from the surface of the broth if you prefer.
Prep ahead: You don’t have to do everything at once. The oxtail can be blanched ahead, the spices prepared, and the garnishes sliced while the broth is cooking.
Amanda’s little reminder :
Pho does take some prep, but the individual steps aren’t difficult. For me, the key is planning the prep around my day and letting the pressure cooker handle the long cooking. That makes a comforting homemade bowl of pho much more doable, even on a busy day.
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