pho noodle salad

We are in the midst of a thoroughly January state of affairs:  We got home on New Year’s Eve from our trip to see B2’s parents in Honolulu, where I was lazier, more relaxed, and more rested than a parent with a toddler has any right to be (God bless grandmas), and in the midst of our post-Hawaii gloom, were all promptly felled by the Great California Flu of 2018.  Well, more accurately, I was felled by the Great California Flu of 2018, B2 was mildly sick, and B3 was sick for exactly one night before bouncing back to his same exuberant self, charging around the house while casting me mystified looks and wondering why his mom was being such a baby.  

But even if it took some (me) longer than others, we’re getting back to normal now!  And thank goodness, because we are partway into 2018 and I still have so many wonderful cookbooks from 2017 to dig into.  This gem of a salad is from Neighborhood, by Hetty McKinnon (of Arthur Street Kitchen goodness).  Hetty has that special skill of crafting salads that manage to be fresh, filling, and flavorful all at once.  The salads in Neighborhood have never seen the inside of a shrinkwrapped bag of chilly iceberg mix (unlike, ahem, my kitchen), but are full of texture and flavor, the sort that aren’t relegated to the side of a plate but are a meal all their own, and make January healthful eating feel like a desire, not a burden.

This pho salad is a case in point–in a total genius twist, Hetty manages to distill a bowl of traditional pho into a quixotic, punchy (and vegetarian!) dressing (which calls for the great fun of holding your onions and ginger over your gas stovetop and hoping you don’t burn the house down) that infuses rice noodles, peppery herbs, tofu, and slightly charred broccolini with the savory, sweet, and hearty flavors of their namesake, without the broth and, even more impressively, without the meat.  The slippery rice noodles contrast beautifully with the five-spice tofu (incidentally, maybe my favorite snack ever), and, to my carb-loving surprise, I found the broccolini to be the star of the show–surprisingly savory, with a satisfying crunch that truly makes the salad feel substantial.  The best part, though, is this:  If you, like me, happen to make this just before getting knocked out with a nasty cold, there’s nothing stopping you from abandoning your salad aspirations and transforming this back into pho–just add a little extra stock to the pho dressing to turn it into hot broth, and toss your salad fixings right in.  It’s the best of both worlds.