Your kitchen might be far removed from the streets of Hanoi, but that doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy one of Vietnam’s most iconic dishes, the meaty, aromatic broth known as pho. Better still, you don’t need to slave over a bubbling pot all day; you can make pressure cooker pho in a matter of minutes.
Sure, it’s nice to spend a lazy day minding broth, stirring it occasionally and savoring the aroma. However, you probably don’t always have time for that luxury. In your pressure cooker, you can easily sauté ingredients such as onion and ginger before you do anything else. Once these ingredients get nicely toasted and charred, add in spices such as cardamom, cinnamon, cloves, anise and coriander.
Then it’s time to construct your broth. It should consist of water, meat such as chicken or beef, fish sauce, sugar and even a fruit such as a Fuji apple or a pear. All that remains is to set your cooker to the recommended time and allow it to do its magic.
Pressure cooker pho goes well with rice, which can also be easily made with the same appliance in no time at all. Once your soup has cooked and you have released the pressure, simply remove it from the cooker, set it aside and dedicate the next few minutes to making your rice. Before you know it, you will be serving your appreciative family a nourishing and delicious meal of pressure cooker pho with all of the fixings. Best of all, you don’t need to update your passport to do it.
