Hillbilly Pho

The hillbilly who is eating the hillbilly pho

Hillbilly Pho

Ingredients:

1-1 and ½ pounds of game meat

1 stalk of lemongrass

1 lime

1 tablespoon fish sauce

1 onion

1-3 chili peppers or canned chili peppers

4 cloves garlic minced

2 tablespoons ginger minced

1 and ½ cup of wild mushrooms (oyster, shitake, ect.)

1 quart of game, chicken, or beef stock

3 tablespoons of vegetable oil

1 pound bok choy

Pho noodles (flat rice noodles)

sea salt or Himalayan salt

fresh cilantro for garnish  

Concept: This recipe is based off Hank Shaw’s Hmong squirrel stew, which he learned from Hmong hunters who’d immigrated from Vietnam after the Vietnam War. His original recipe is a lighter than mine and doesn’t include the wild mushrooms. It also doesn't use noodles. For this batch, I used squirrel and beaver meat. You could recreate this recipe, however, with a number of different wild meats. I imagine wild hogs would be particularly good.

Now, to be honest, this isn’t pho. Rather, it’s a simplified, back woods interpretation of the comfort food I’ve come to love. Squirrel and beaver are usually cooked into some sort of either fried, southern meal with gravy, and I wanted to diverge from that set of flavors to see what I could really do with the unpopular proteins I had in the freezer. So here, the flavors are punchy, spicy, and they have good citrusy notes.

The contraption I rigged up the cook since the stove broke

My stovetop also happened to break while doing this recipe, so I had to finish it out of doors. Truly the spirit of the woodsman!

Instructions:

1. Soak meat in salt water for 12-24 hours

2. Mince only the white, tender portions of the lemongrass. Slice mushrooms. Mince garlic, ginger, and chili peppers. Set aside all these.

3. Leave meat on the bone or cut into manageable sizes. Heat oil in large pot on medium to medium high heat. Brown the meat on both sides. Set aside.

An artistic depiction of the spices

4. Stir fry the lemongrass, mushrooms, garlic, ginger, and chili peppers for 90 seconds.

5. Put meat back into pot. Pour the stock. The stock should cover the meat. If it doesn’t add water. Add fish sauce, squeeze the juice of half the lime, and add around half an onion sliced in whole circles.

6. Let simmer for 1-2 hours, stirring occasionally. Chop the chard into big chunks and set aside.

7. When the meat is falling off the bone, remove pieces, and pull the meat from the bone. Put back into the soup without the bones. Add the bok choy and cook for another ten minutes.

8. Heat noodles separately. Use pho noodles or a similar flat, rice based noodle.

9. Pour stock over prepared noodles and add cilantro as a garnish. Salt to taste.

The final product!

            Pro tip: squeeze some extra lime juice into the soup and add some fresh bean sprouts for another layer of delicious!