WATCHING PHO Republique chef Arnond "Arnold" Sreesuvan make the broth for his chicken pho is an awe-inspiring lesson in the rewards that come from exquisite focus and a near-religious devotion to culinary excellence. Over the course of an afternoon, I learn, yet again, that often the simplest dishes are the greatest test of a chef.
I became pho-curious when a friend suggested that we go for a bowl of chicken soup and we both knew she didn't mean the kind with matzo balls. But while pho has moved from the margins to the mainstream, I realized that I hadn't a clue about how to judge a good one from something so-so. Here's the secret: it's all in the color of the broth. A shade too dark means the chicken was cooked too long; a tad too pale equals too little chicken in the chicken-to-water ratio. Too green means the chef added the vegetables and spices too soon. Too cloudy: the chef hasn't taken enough care skimming the soup.
April 14 was the seventh anniversary of the day Arnond Sreesuvan "touched the ground" in the US from Thailand. (Coincidentally, it was also the Thai New Year.) When Sreesuvan arrived in Boston, he "couldn't say anything" until he began watching Clifford the Big Red Dog and Sesame Street on TV. Today, he's fluent and funny in English, but he hasn't lost any of his Thai-ness. A practicing Buddhist, Sreesuvan meditates at least twice a day. "We can clean our bodies with a shower, but we have to clean our minds, too," he explains.
Sreesuvan was schooled in electronics in Bangkok but soon discovered that he preferred hot woks to hot wires. Although he learned to make pho in Vietnam, his training as a chef began at home in a tiny rural village. He is a perfectionist taught by a perfectionist. Every morning in Thailand, Sreesuvan's mother puts on her magnifying glasses and hand-sorts huge bags of dried red, yellow, and green chilies for the famous chili paste that she sells by the gallon at the local market. Once the sorting is complete, she painstakingly removes each tiny stem by hand to ensure that her paste's flavor is pure and clean. It's no surprise that her son shows similar diligence in the most basic, seminal task in the Asian kitchen: making rich, clear broth.
Watching Sreesuvan prepare to make chicken soup is an education in excellence. It takes him more than two hours to make pho, which requires over a dozen ingredients (not counting very cold water) and is a process so precise and so distinct from other approaches to chicken soup that I'm going to repeat it here out of respect. Sreesuvan explains that pho is a "complete" dish, one that contains the five flavors that make Thai and Vietnamese cooking so intoxicating: salty, sweet, sour, spicy, and peanut.
Of course, it starts with fresh chicken on the bone. How much? "Enough to make it 50-50 chicken and water," says Sreesuvan. "Too little chicken makes a sad broth." For the first half-hour or so, he lets the chicken simmer quietly, at a heat that "makes the bubbles of fish swimming close to the surface of a pond." (Listening to Sreesuvan is part of the joy.) He says that the undisturbed, undiluted chicken - no salt yet, no spice - is what ensures the good yellow color. While the chicken is bubbling away, the weird stuff starts: putting an unpeeled white onion and hands of fresh ginger on the grill to char; cooking sticks of cinnamon, star anise, and whole pods of cardamom in a hot frying pan until they start to burn and smoke. From time to time, Sreesuvan skims the broth with a large ladle, studiously removing any solids, anything that floats to the surface, and anything that would mar the clarity of the finished product. If he's not happy with the result, he adds a cup or so of ice water to the pot. The change in temperature jolts the brew into giving up more "dirt" to be skimmed off. It's a trick an old woman in Vietnam showed him, although she wasn't happy about giving away any of her secrets.
After an hour, he's ready to add to the pristine broth. The vegetables go first, after he rinses off the ash and bonks the fresh ginger with a mallet. The grilled vegetables smell sweet, simultaneously honey-ish and smoky. Sreesuvan adds them to the pot in big unpeeled chunks, pushing them to the bottom for maximum flavor. Next, he whooshes the smoking cinnamon, cardamom, and star anise under the faucet before binding them up in a cheesecloth knot with whole black peppercorns and coriander seeds. "Careful not to put the spices in too soon, otherwise they make the broth too dark and spicy," he says, gently submerging the cloth ball under a floating chicken wing.
No perfume could be more sensuous than this mix of anise and ginger, chicken and cinnamon. Sreesuvan knows it's time to add the salt and rock sugar when the chicken meat falls off the bone with the touch of a spoon. He prefers rock sugar because it gives a better color to the broth than cane sugar. "But it's okay sometimes to use white sugar, just not as good," he notes. Like a chemistry teacher doing science tricks for the class, Sreesuvan demonstrates how the color and clarity of the broth improve magically when he adds salt and sugar. He tastes it and decides to add equal amounts of both.
Scallions are last. Sreesuvan uses only the white ends - "The green part goes black and discolors the broth" - and only to float on top for five minutes to give a fresh color and taste. Minutes before serving the pho, Sreesuvan trims sheets of fresh chow foon noodles into ribbons, slices refrigerated chicken breast and beef brisket in thin strips, cuts a lime, chops peanuts, and grabs handfuls of fresh Thai basil, cilantro, romaine, and bean sprouts for garnish. Then he drops the meat and noodles into huge pre-heated bowls and ladles in the broth.
A few years ago, Chris Kimball, the geeky and brilliant founder of Cook's Illustrated and America's Test Kitchen, asked me a really good question. How can you tell if a pad Thai, or pulled pork, or a chimichanga (among other dishes) is good or mediocre until you've eaten enough of them to establish some kind of baseline for your palate? It's advice I've taken to heart, and when a new exotic dish becomes a standby, I try to establish an internal rating system. I've been making the rounds with pho - slurping high, slurping low, and finally finding pho heaven at Pho Republique. Now I know why. @
Louisa Kasdon can be reached at food@stuffatnight.com.
