This was Vietnamese-style beef and noodle soup.
The recipe came from Cook's Illustrated's Slow Cooker Revolution book. I wasn't sure it would be actually Pho, but in either way it sounded nice. Wegmans didn't have beef blade steak. Instead, they gave us a similar cut of beef stake. Lemon grass was a new ingredient for me to use by myself. Fish sauce and star anise pods were other ingredients to bring South Asian flavors!
After 6 hours on high, beef stake were super tender like this. J didn't want to shred them because shredded meat might disappear into the soup. So he tried to slice them, but the steaks were naturally almost shredded...
The recipe called for thick rice noodles so that noodles could be cooked in the slow cooker for ten to twenty minutes. However we didn't want to mess the soup with noodles and J would like thin rice noodles like Pho. We bought very thin rice noodles that can be soften by just soaking in water for twenty minutes. Easy!
Garnishes were bean sprouts that I quickly cooked in boiling water with salt and vinegar, fresh cilantro, fresh basil, scallions, and lime juice.
The result was great! With all garnishes, the noodle bowl was very flavorful! Beef was tender. Noodles were a little tough but no problem. We enjoyed this something like Pho so much!
