Soups & Stews | Jaden's Steamy Kitchen

Vietnamese Beef Noodle Soup - Pho Bo

What the Pho?!

I've been working hard perfecting the techniques and recipe for Vietnamese Beef Noodle Soup, or Pho, just for you. And really, I'm not kissing ass or anything, but it's because of you guys that I'm posting this recipe! Of all the cookbooks that I own, the best recipe that I've found for Pho is from:

Andrea Nguyen's Into the Vietnamese Kitchen, which is one of the most comprehensive books on the cuisine of Vietnam. The book also won nominations for a James Beard Foundation award and two International Association of Culinary Professionals (IACP). Definitely a must-have book for Asian food lovers.

So, let's get right to it - I've got lots of photos to share.

Oh and the dish is pronounced "fuh" and not "foo" or "foe" or "puh"

Yeah, Pho is cheap to purchase at a good Pho restaurant...but to be able to make a home made version? Pretty Pho-king amazing, if you ask me.

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February 9th, 2008 in Uncategorized |

Beef Congee (Rice Porridge) + PBS Show

Every morning in China, we would wake up to a smorgasbord of a breakfast buffet. The hotels and cruise ships had anticipated every kind of craving - from "orange sauce" to "dessicated potatoes" , Chinglish for orange juice and hash browns. But when in China, eat like the Chinese. Plus, "stewed encased meat surprise" (sausage) and "fresh cream squirt" (I have NO IDEA what that really was) just didn't sound too appetizing...(continued)....

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November 16th, 2007 in Uncategorized |

Vietnamese Chicken Noodle Soup - Pho Ga

You haven’t experienced wild until you’ve lived in the heart of Hollywood. My little duplex was squished in between movie-star wannabes, the homeless pushing shopping carts piled 8-ft high with trash treasures and gold-chained pimps proclaiming to the world, "GIRLS! GIRLS! GIRLS! Right over here!"

The location was by choice and I had a very good reason for living 2 blocks from the golden sidewalk stars. It was called, “just so I can say that I did.” I know. I was young. But seriously, where else can I shimmy into CFM boots, don an electric pink wig and just blend in without getting mistaken for $25? When the sun sets and street-level neon gas flows, Hollywood is pure freedom of expression.

After a night of clubbing 2 blocks south, my friends and I would walk 3 blocks east to a small, rinky-dink Vietnamese noodle shop to fill up on pho. Asian girly posters littered the walls and the same bad karaoke DVD played over and over. Thank goodness the steaming, hot, intoxicating bowl of pho drowned out the awful Chinglish rendition of, “Baby Got Back.” That soup was un-pho-king believable.

I don’t know what secret family recipe they followed, but after all these years, I finally mastered that bowl of chicken pho in my home kitchen, boots not required.

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July 14th, 2007 in Chicken & Turkey |

Simple 10-Minute Miso Soup

While writing my post on How to Host a Sushi Party, I surfed the blogs for a good 30 minutes looking for a great tutorial on how to make miso soup using instant dashi. Well, I couldn't find one that I liked, and in that 30 minutes I could have made 30 gallons of miso soup and still photograph/write a tutorial. So thats just what I did. (the photography/writing thing, not the 30 gallons)

First, the ingredients:
I use instant Dashi - kind of like Japan's version of chicken boullion. If you didn't have Dashi, you could use diluted chicken stock...but it just wouldn't taste right. But hey, if you really wanted miso soup and thats all you had, go for it. Just make sure you dilute the chicken stock - 70% water, 30% stock...otherwise your miso soup will end up tasting like chicken soup. Alright, back to the dashi. You could also make dashi from kombu and bonito flakes, but this recipe is the 10 minute miso soup, therefore instant dashi works just fine. Instant dashi can also come in a convenient glass jar.

Other uses for dashi stock- boil your edamame in dashi instead of just plain water. They will taste SO much better.
Blanch or steam vegetables in dashi stock.

This is dried seaweed. Just a tablespoon of the dried wakame will be enough for a pot of miso soup to feed 4. Soak this in a little water and watch it expand. There are many, many different kinds of seaweed, but this one is made especially for eating in miso soup. Look at the package first. Of course, I can't read Japanese, but the back of this package shows an illustration of miso soup and little arrows pointing to put the seaweed in the soup and a happy smiling face drinking the soup. Therefore it must mean seaweed fortified with Prozac.

This is the miso paste that I found in the refrigerated section of the Asian market. Many regular supermarkets have miso paste as well. I generally buy organic, but this is all I found last week. I like Shiro Miso the best - its lighter, sweeter, little less salty. The most important thing about making miso soup is that you never boil the miso paste. Only add miso after you've turned off the heat. So, if you are using anything that needs a little cooking time, just do that before you add the miso paste.

Organic tofu. Cut into little cubes. I've tried making my own tofu before. Lots of work for very little tofu. I'd rather buy a block of the organic stuff.

10 Minute Miso Soup

serves 4 4 cups water
1 1/2 teaspoons instant dashi powder
1/2 cup miso paste
1 tablespoon dried seaweed (for miso soup), soaked in
1/2 cup water
1/2 cup cubed tofu
1 tablespoon chopped green onion

1. Boil water. Add dashi. Turn down heat. Stir.

2. Add tofu and drained seaweed. Let cook for a minute on low. In meantime, spoon 1/2 cup of the hot stock into bowl with the miso paste. Using chopsticks, mix to melt the miso paste so that it becomes a smooth mixture.