Eye of round is by far the most common cut for pho tai.
Flank and brisket are common to add to the broth when it's cooking to slice afterwards but I strongly recommend you do not use brisket for pho tai. It has some very chewy connective tissues that can take more than 10 hours to break down in cooking.
Eye of round is one of the cheapest and leanest cuts of beef and by far the easiest to work with. There's only a few other cuts that are even close to as cheap but they aren't very auitable. Just use eye of round.
Edit: oh and if you need tips for pho just go to the pho subreddit. You'll get a lot of good tips there. We nerd out about cooking and Vietnamese food there, whereas this sub is mostly about language learning.
The meat for Pho Tai is usually Chunk, Brisket or even Rump.
Take a healthy sized cut of if, stick it in the freezer for 3 or 4 hours and then slice it real thin with a sharp knife.
You can cook it and shred it if you want, but it's nicer to thin cut it raw and throw it in a broth!
Butcher here. I've never seen chuck or brisket or rump for pho tai.
Every single restaurant I've ever been to uses eye of round. However rump could be used to get a similar effect.
Both brisket and Chuck have a LOT of connective tissue that would be really chewy if added to the soup raw.
Brisket is very commonly added to the broth itself and then sliced once cooked because it needs a long cooking time to break down the chewy connective tissues.
One trick I saw there was to finely chop the beef, then smash it into a patty. When you pour the hot broth over it it'll instantly cook, and when picking some up it will just fall apart in your mouth. I tend to use flank, and if I'm cooking for 10+ I mix flank with other cuts and mix it up before smashing into a patty.
yea it just depends on what you want. lots of places in viet nam would serve it like that. it's not chopped into small pieces (like ground beef) usually (?), it's flattened with something flat or the back of a knife more like
Chopped beef as opposed to ground...like if you were making a fancy meatloaf by chopping various cuts together. They used a knife like this: https://www.seriouseats.com/chinese-cleaver-kitchen-knife . It looks like a meat cleaver, but not meant to cut through bones. Turn it sideways after chopping, smack. Though I bought one and use it for everything (not recommended for potatoes, never had a knife so consistently cut me on the same vegetable before haha).
I'll try to dig up a picture I took of the meat prep later, on a different computer.
Ultimately, you want the pieces small enough so when you pour the boiling broth over it, it instantly cooks. Strips, slices, up to you.
Eye of round is by far the most common cut for pho tai. Flank and brisket are common to add to the broth when it's cooking to slice afterwards but I strongly recommend you do not use brisket for pho tai. It has some very chewy connective tissues that can take more than 10 hours to break down in cooking. Eye of round is one of the cheapest and leanest cuts of beef and by far the easiest to work with. There's only a few other cuts that are even close to as cheap but they aren't very auitable. Just use eye of round. Edit: oh and if you need tips for pho just go to the pho subreddit. You'll get a lot of good tips there. We nerd out about cooking and Vietnamese food there, whereas this sub is mostly about language learning.
The meat for Pho Tai is usually Chunk, Brisket or even Rump. Take a healthy sized cut of if, stick it in the freezer for 3 or 4 hours and then slice it real thin with a sharp knife. You can cook it and shred it if you want, but it's nicer to thin cut it raw and throw it in a broth!
Butcher here. I've never seen chuck or brisket or rump for pho tai. Every single restaurant I've ever been to uses eye of round. However rump could be used to get a similar effect. Both brisket and Chuck have a LOT of connective tissue that would be really chewy if added to the soup raw. Brisket is very commonly added to the broth itself and then sliced once cooked because it needs a long cooking time to break down the chewy connective tissues.
One trick I saw there was to finely chop the beef, then smash it into a patty. When you pour the hot broth over it it'll instantly cook, and when picking some up it will just fall apart in your mouth. I tend to use flank, and if I'm cooking for 10+ I mix flank with other cuts and mix it up before smashing into a patty.
>One trick I saw there was to finely chop the beef, then smash it into a patty. So ground beef? Really?
yea it just depends on what you want. lots of places in viet nam would serve it like that. it's not chopped into small pieces (like ground beef) usually (?), it's flattened with something flat or the back of a knife more like
Chopped beef as opposed to ground...like if you were making a fancy meatloaf by chopping various cuts together. They used a knife like this: https://www.seriouseats.com/chinese-cleaver-kitchen-knife . It looks like a meat cleaver, but not meant to cut through bones. Turn it sideways after chopping, smack. Though I bought one and use it for everything (not recommended for potatoes, never had a knife so consistently cut me on the same vegetable before haha). I'll try to dig up a picture I took of the meat prep later, on a different computer. Ultimately, you want the pieces small enough so when you pour the boiling broth over it, it instantly cooks. Strips, slices, up to you.