Steamy Kitchen» Vietnamese Recipes

Crock Pot Pho (Vietnamese Beef Noodle Soup)

SteamyKitchen — Mon, 04 May 2009 12:00:16 +0000

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It’s no secret that good Pho broth requires a gazillion hours of simmering time. Time that I just don’t have. Tony, a boyfriend from a lifetime ago, told me his Dad used to simmer giant vats of pho broth overnight for his little pho restaurant in Houston. So, one day, I thought it would be really genius to do the same. Dump a bunch of beefy, tendony, knuckley, marrowey bones into the largest stockpot that I have and let it simmer away while I slept.

It didn’t quite work out as I had intended:

11:30pm Initial hard boil of the bones to get all the yuck, guck and scum off. Char ginger and onion.

11:38pm Dumped out water, added clean water, the clean bones, spices, ginger and onion. Let the dance begin.

11:45pm Nighty-night

12:35am Is the flame low enough? Maybe I need to check to see.

1:23am Hmmm…I smell something funny. Go check.

2:41am What if it boiled over? Go check.

3:24am What if there’s a gas bubble in the pipe and the the stove spontaneously bursts out in big flames? Maybe I should sleep on the couch closer to the kitchen.

4:45am Gosh I’m hungry. Sneak a big spoonful of Ben & Jerry’s Pistachio Ice Cream.

4:51am Did I forget to put ice cream back in freezer? What if the gas bubble really does happen and stove spontaneously bursts out in flames? Then sleeping on couch is a dumbass idea. Crawl back to bed.

6:00am Kids wake up. Jumps up and down on my belly trying to wake me up.

6:15am PHO-KING TIRED

Enter the Slow Cooker

A few weeks later, I was contacted by the peeps at Crock-Pot® The Original Slow Cooker <- yes, they are insanely paranoid about me using their correct trademarked name, so much that they’ve given me very specific instructions 4 separate times on how to properly spell/mark their product names.) They sent me their new eLume Crock-Pot ® Programmable Slow Cooker with Touch Screen Technology to test.

<- shiny, pretty and fancy. Oh crap, I forgot the ™ after eLume™.

It’s the perfect size (6.5 quarts) for a big mean mama pot of PHO!!!

Oh yeah, baby! It solves my problem of paranoia when leaving stove on all night.

What I love about the eLume™ Crock Pot® is© its™ lighted™© touchscreen®™©. Just a light tap is all that you need and it’s totally programmable from 30 minutes to 20 hours of cooking time. You can also set it to start cooking at a certain time, but when making my Crock Pot Pho Recipe, I don’t recommend a delayed start time since we are working with raw meat bones.

How to make Crock Pot Pho

Whether you use the Crock Pot Pho method or the traditional stove top method, there are a couple of steps that you’ll need to do before throwing it all in the Crock Pot or slow cooker. Namely, toasting the spices, grilling the onion/ginger and pre-boiling the bones. These aren’t absolutely necessary steps…you’ll still make great pho…BUT these extra steps will make the difference between good pho and pho-bulous pho.

Toasting the Vietnamese Pho Spices

You can buy Pho spices at most Asian supermarkets – you can buy the spices separately (coriander seeds, cloves, cinnamon, star anise, fennel and cardamom pod) or purchase them already mixed up in a package (which also includes a small mesh bag). The quality of these pre-mixed spices are just okay – but sometimes it’s just convenient to pick up a bag, not to mention much cheaper if you don’t already have many of these spices. A Pho spice pack will typically sell for $1-$3.

This day that I made the Crock Pot Pho, I used individual spices. I didn’t have cardamom pod. So yes, if you are missing one of couple of the spices, it’s okay. To get the best flavor from these spices, you’ll toast them in a dry skillet.

Grilling Ginger and Onion

This is a totally optional step, but it really gives the ginger and the onion a deep, sweet, mellow flavor. When I’m making Pho the traditional stovetop way, I’ll char them in the broiler. But with the crock pot method, I didn’t want to use the oven at all. After toasting the spices (above) in a frying pan, I add a bit of oil and grilled the onion half and thick ginger slices.

Pre-Boiling the Bones

Knuckles, leg bones with lots of marrow are the best for making soup. The marrow will also make the soup rich and thick. The bones are pre-boiled for a few minutes on high heat to clean the bones and get rid of the nasty scum.

You’ll bring a big stockpot of water to a boil on high heat. Add the bones and boil hard for 10 minutes. You’ll see brownish scum rise to the surface. If you hadn’t taken the time to pre-boil the bones, all that scummy stuff ends up in your soup.

<– nasty pho-reaky scum

Drain, discard the scummy water and briefly rinse the bones.

Now you’ll add the spices, ginger, onion and bones to the slow cooker.

Fill with fresh, clean, cool water about 1-1/2 inches below the surface. Set your slow cooker on low for 8 hours. I haven’t tried this method on high, but I’m sure it would be just fine.

So let this cook during all day while you’re at work or at night while you sleep and you’ll be rewarded with the cleanest, best tasting pho soups ever. Because the slow cooker doesn’t let the stock boil hard, it’s safe, easy and convenient.

Here’s what the stock looks like when it’s been cooking for 8 hours on low. Notice that the level of the liquid is still pretty high. The low, even setting doesn’t evaporate the precious liquid as much as a stove top can. The stock is strained before serving.

Other Pho Ingredients

I used different ingredients than my previous version of traditional Vietnamese Pho and I wanted to highlight them. Instead of using dried rice noodles, I used fresh rice noodles found at Asian markets, in the refrigerated section because all these need is a quick dip in boiling water. Very fast!

I also bought a package of Vietnamese Beef Balls (called Bo Vien Dan). There are all sorts of balls – beef, pork, chicken, fish, crab, and my favorite – beef tendon. They come frozen in a package and they are pre-cooked, so all you need to do is throw the frozen balls into the same pot of boiling water as you cooked your noodles in. Just boil for a couple of minutes until the beef balls are heated through. I like cutting these beef balls in half, so make them easier to eat. It’s not so pretty trying to stick an entire beef ball in your mouth. Unless…you’re like really into that.

Crock Pot Pho Recipe

This is a recipe for a 6.5 quart (or larger) Crock Pot. Any smaller really isn’t that great – you won’t get enough stock out of it…because the beef bones are really chunky and big. The thinly sliced meat for the bowls may be easier to slice if you freeze the chunk of meat for 15 minutes prior to slicing. You really want them as thin a possible. You can also do what I do – palm your butcher a $5 bill and he’ll slice the meat for you on his fancy slicing machine

Serves 4

For the Pho Stock:
4 pounds beef bones
1/2 onion
4 inch section of ginger, sliced
1 package Vietnamese Pho Spices (or as many of these spices as you have: 2 cinnamon sticks, 2 teaspoons whole coriander, 1 teaspooon fennel, 3 whole star anise, 3 whole cloves, 1 cardamom pod)
9 cups water
2 1/2 tablespoons fish sauce or to taste
1 teaspoon sugar

For the Pho Bowls
16 ounces fresh or dried rice noodles
1/2 pound flank, london broil, sirloin or eye of round steak, sliced as thinly as possible.
11 ounces Vietnamese beef balls, cut into half

For the table
1-2 limes, cut into wedges
fresh herbs: cilantro, Thai basil, mint
2-3 chili peppers, sliced
2 big handfuls of bean sprouts
Hoisin sauce
Sriracha hot chili sauce

1. Bring a large stockpot with water to boil over high heat. When it comes to a rolling boil, add the beef bones and boil vigourously for 10 minutes.

2. In the meantime, heat a frying pan on medium-low heat. Add the Vietnamese Pho Spices and toast until fragrant, about 2-3 minutes. Dump the spices to the empty Crock Pot or slow cooker immediately. Return frying pan to medium-high heat and add 1 tablespoon of oil. When the oil is hot, add the ginger slices and the onion half. Cook until the ginger is browned on both sides and the onion half is nicely browned and softened. Add the ginger and the onion to the Crock Pot or slow cooker.

3. When the bones have been pre-boiled, drain, discard water and rinse bones briefly to clean them. Add the bones to the Crock Pot or slow cooker. Fill the Crock Pot with fresh, clean, cool water to just 1-1/2 inches below surface, add the fish sauce and sugar. Cover and set the Crock Pot or slow cooker to cook on low for 8 hours. Taste and season with additional fish sauce if needed.

4. When you are just about ready to eat, you’ll prep the rest of the ingredients for the Pho bowls. Bring a pot of water to a boil. Add the beef balls and cook until heated through, about 2 minutes. Remove the balls, keeping the water boiling and now cook the noodles according to package instructions. If you are using fresh noodles, all they need is a couple of minutes. Drain immediately.

5. Strain the stock with a fine meshed sieve. Discard the solids.

6. Line up 4 large bowls on counter. Distribute the noodles, beef balls and thin steak slices evenly amongst the bowls. Ladle the hot Pho stock into each bowl. The hot stock should cook the thin steak slices. Serve with lime wedges, fresh herbs, chili peppers, Hoisin sauce and Sriracha hot chili sauce at the table.

===

Vietnamese Pho Recipe (cooked the traditional, long, slow, stovetop method)

Vietnamese Chicken Pho Recipe (Pho Ga)

Red Lantern Grilled Sirloin with Chile, Garlic, and Ginger

SteamyKitchen — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 16:58:01 +0000

Photo of Red Lantern’s Grilled Sirloin with Chile, Garlic and Ginger courtesy of Secrets of the Red Lantern Cookbook

I love my friends!

I needed a few more shots for the cookbook, and asked my good friends Matt and Dannika of MattikaArts if he’d like to take a shot {pun intended..haha i soooo funny! snort.} at photographing some Asian ingredients and be published in the Steamy Kitchen Cookbook!

This all happened via email and I swear to Buddha that I heard him giggle.

<– this guy…he giggled in his email, I could hear it between the commas!

And look at the beautiful photos he took – they will be in the Ingredients section of the Steamy Kitchen Cookbook!

Click on the photo below for the slideshow – there are a total of 7 photos.

(click on photo for slideshow of 7 photos)

How could you not fall in love with this man???

***

Cookbook Giveaway Winner

Time sure flies by…one minute I’m posting Red Lantern’s Crisp Parcels or Vietnamese Spring Rolls (Cha Gio) and giving away a copy of the caress-me-now cookbook, Secrets of the Red Lantern by Pauline Nguyen – and then a week passes by. I was supposed to draw a random name as the winner. Oops! Got busy, missed deadline…so what’s another day? Well, then another week passes by and here I am, totally apologizing to you for being late announcing the lucky winner of Secrets of the Red Lantern Cookbook!

So, without further delay (cuz you know I’m good at that!) the winner of the cookbook is

Grace says:

Just by reading your post I’m completely sold and intensely craving spring rolls. I prefer my with bean thread/veggie/pork filling but when necessity and/or boredom strikes I grab just about anything from the fridge.

Congrats Grace! Email me your deets and I’ll have the publisher send the book to you: jaden{at}steamykitchen{dot}com.

Red Lantern’s Grilled Sirloin with Chile, Garlic, and Ginger Recipe

Bo Nuong Toi Gung
Two 1/2 pound sirloin steaks
2 handfuls shredded green papaya
1 small handful mixed herbs (perilla, Vietnamese mint, and basil)
1 tablespoon fried shallots
1 tablespoon dried shrimp, soaked in hot water for 5 minutes and drained
3 tablespoons dipping fish sauce

MARINADE
2 teaspoons pickled chili
2 cloves garlic, finely minced
¾-inch piece of ginger, grated with microplane grater
2 tablespoons Asian fish sauce
1 tablespoon superfine sugar
2 teaspoons vegetable oil
Pinch of salt
Mix all the marinade ingredients together until the sugar dissolves. Add the steaks and marinate for 2 hours in the fridge. Grill the steaks over medium to high heat, to your preference (6 minutes for rare, 10 minutes for medium), then rest the steaks for 5 minutes. Reheat the steaks on the grill pan, then cut into thin slices.
Serve with a salad of green papaya, mixed herbs, fried shallots, and dried shrimp, dressed with dipping fish sauce.
SERVES 4

Dipping Fish Sauce

Nuoc Mam Cham

3 tablespoons Asian fish sauce
3 tablespoons rice vinegar
2 tablespoons sugar
2 cloves garlic
1 bird’s-eye chili
2 tablespoons freshly squeezed lime juice

Combine the fish sauce, rice vinegar, ½ cup of water, and sugar in a saucepan and place over medium heat. Stir well and cook until just before boiling point is reached, then allow to cool. To serve, finely chop the garlic and chile and stir in the lime juice.
MAKES 1 CUP

Fried Shallots

Hanh Phi

½ pound shallots, peeled
4 cups vegetable oil

Finely slice the shallots and wash under cold water. Dry the shallots with a cloth, then set them aside on some paper towel until they are completely dry.
Put the oil in a wok and heat to 350 degrees F, or until a cube of bread dropped in the oil browns in 15 seconds. Fry the shallots in small batches until they turn golden brown, then remove with a slotted spoon to a paper towel.
The fried shallots are best eaten freshly fried but will keep for up to 2 days in an airtight container.

—Recipe from Secrets of the Red Lantern by Pauline Nguyen

Red Lantern Crisp Parcels (Cha Gio or Spring Rolls)

SteamyKitchen — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 20:42:48 +0000

Photo of Vietnamese Spring Rolls (Cha Gio) courtesy of Secrets of the Red Lantern Cookbook! It’s gorgeous!

**Make sure you read through to the end…I’ve got a copy of Secrets of the Red Lantern to giveaway to you!**

One of the books that is always near my nighstand is the absolutely stunning Secrets of the Red Lantern by Pauline Nguyen. I was in Los Angeles at the famous Cook’s Libarary bookstore and was drawn in by the gorgeous cover artwork. I picked up the volumous 345 page book and simply could not put it down. No, seriously, I did not let this baby out of my sight the rest of the trip and even chose to pack my laptop in my suitcase and instead brought Secrets of the Red Lantern in my carry-on baggage.

Baby, that’s true love.

I got a chance to chat with the lovely Pauline Nguyen last night and just couldn’t wait to share her recipe for Vietnamese Spring Rolls or Cha Gio with you. At her restaurant, Red Lantern, this dish is called “Red Lantern Crisp Parcels.”

Continue reading RED LANTERN CRISP PARCELS (CHA GIO OR SPRING ROLLS)
Secrets of the Red Lantern book is part cookbook, part bittersweet memoir of the Nguyen family’s escape from war-ravaged Vietnam and their struggles as they adapt to the harsh refugee life and finally making their lives in Australia. Pauline bares her soul in this debut book – it will make you smile, laugh, cry and even fume with anger. There are links at end of post to others who have written fabulous reviews of her book, so I won’t go in much detail here, but I wanted to give you a glimpse of Pauline, mom of Mia and soon to be mom of baby #2. Oh yes, and to give you her recipe for Vietnamese Spring Rolls too!

Pauline Nguyen, author of Secrets of the Red Lantern

Pauline lives in Australia and I live in Florida, so you can imagine the very thin snippet of the day where our two schedules can meet for an uninterrupted phone call! Luckily, I’m a total night owl and call her 12:30AM my time, which was 4:30PM her time. And guess where she took my call?

Summer.

35C/95F degrees

Beach.

Sydney, Australia.

Ooooh….I wanted to be right there on the beach with her! Oh yeah.

Pauline Nguyen took two years off from the busy restaurant business (oh yes, Red Lantern is the name of her restaurant she owns with her brother Luke and partner Mark) to write this book, and she penned this memoir as a heirloom for her now 4-year old daughter, Mia.

More on my phone chat with Pauline Nguyen in another post (and yes, another recipe from her book in the next post too). In the meantime, enjoy her recipe for Vietnamese Spring Rolls (Cha Gio).

Vietnamese Spring Rolls Recipe (Cha Gio)
(Red Lantern Crisp Parcels)

From Secrets of the Red Lantern by Pauline Nguyen with recipes by Luke Nguyen and Mark Jensen

2¾ ounces dried bean thread noodles (or mung bean noodles)
1¾ ounces dried mushroom strips, such as wood ear mushrooms or Chinese black fungus
½ pound ground pork
½ pound ground chicken
1 pound carrots, grated
½ onion, finely diced
1 tablespoon sugar
1 tablespoon salt
2 teaspoons fine white pepper
1 tablespoon Asian fish sauce
20 spring (egg) roll wrappers, 8½ inches square
Dipping fish sauce, for serving

Soak the noodles and mushroom strips separately in cold water for 20 minutes, then drain and drip dry in a colander. Cut the noodles into 1½-inch-long pieces, then combine with all of the filling ingredients in a large bowl and mix well.

Cut the spring roll wrappers diagonally to form two triangles, then separate them into single sheets. Place a piece of wrapper on a plate with the base of the triangle facing you. Spoon about 1 tablespoon of the mixture onto the middle of the bottom edge of the wrapper and fold the two adjacent sides, one on top of the other into the center. Roll toward the apex to form a nice firm roll, and secure with a dab of flour mixed with some water. Repeat until you have filled all of the wrappers.

When freshly rolled, the cha gio can be deep-fried in oil preheated to 350 degrees F or until a cube of bread dropped in the oil browns in 15 seconds. Alternatively, you can store them in the freezer and cook when needed.

These can be cooked and eaten on their own, dipped in dipping fish sauce, or placed on top of a dressed vermicelli salad. At Red Lantern, we like to wrap the parcels in lettuce with herbs and serve with dipping fish sauce.

Note: Be sure you use the spring roll wrappers as soon as they thaw.

MAKES 40

Vietnamese Spring Rolls Dipping Sauce Recipe (Nuoc Mam Cham)

From Secrets of the Red Lantern by Pauline Nguyen with recipes by Luke Nguyen and Mark Jensen

3 tablespoons Asian fish sauce
3 tablespoons rice vinegar
2 tablespoons sugar
2 cloves garlic
1 bird’s-eye chili
2 tablespoons freshly squeezed lime juice

Combine the fish sauce, rice vinegar, 1/2 cup of water, and sugar in a
saucepan and place over medium heat. Stir well and cook until just before
boiling point is reached, then allow to cool. To serve, finely chop the
garlic and chile and stir in the lime juice. To liven it up, add pickled
vegetables.

MAKES 1 CUP

***

Reviews on Pauline Nguyen’s Secrets of the Red Lantern Cookbook

White On Rice Couple – plus recipe for Tamarind Crab and Tamarind Shrimp

In Mama’s Kitchen review

Global Gourmet – plus recipe for Steamed Cockles or Periwinkle, Bittermelon Stuffed with Pork and Black Fungus, Wok-tossed Water Spinach
with Fermented Bean Curd Sauce

and of course good ‘ol Amazon.com where you can purchase the Secrets of the Red Lantern book.

***

Secrets of the Red Lantern Cookbook Giveaway!

<– this copy for you

My friends, since there is NO WAY I would give away my copy of Secrets of the Red Lantern Cookbook, Pauline was kind enough to have the publisher provide a copy for one lucky ducky reader.

I’ll hold the super-secret, super-random drawing on Valentine’s Day! If you’d like to enter…it’s easy. Just comment below and tell me what filling you like to have in your Spring Rolls!

Vietnamese Iced Coffee (Cafe Sua Da)

SteamyKitchen — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 19:24:39 +0000

Thanks to two of my favorite bloggers WhiteOnRice and Wandering Chopsticks, I learned a few secrets to some great recipes that I shared on TV last month…come take a look at the video:

(by the way, ABC7 upgraded their video application, now it plays on both PCs and Mac!)

When you get to ABC’s site, click on FEATURED VIDEO right below recipe name.

Here’s what you need to make Vietnamese Iced Coffee, or Cafe Sua Da:

1) French roast medium coarse ground coffee: You can use any type of coffee really, many Vietnamese use Cafe Du Monde French Roast Chicory coffee, but as long as the coffee is medium coarse ground, you can use it. Fine ground coffee would fall right through the little holes of the coffee press.

2) Sweetened condensed milk: It’s the sweet, sticky, thick stuff – NOT evaporated milk! No substitutions here!

3) Vietnamese coffee press: Found at any Asian market – usually between $1.50 and $4.00. Here are some resources.

4) 2 glasses: one filled to the brim with ice.

***

Step 1: Add 2 tablespoons of sweetened condensed milk to a glass

Step 2: Add 2 tablespoons of ground coffee to the base of the coffee press

Note: if you want a much stronger coffee, Wandering Chopsticks recommends to wet the grounds just a bit to let them expand. About a spoonful of water should do the trick!

Step 3: Screw on the press tight. The coffee should be packed well.

Step 4: Pour boiling hot water into the coffee press.

Cover with its little hat.

Step 5: Wait. It will drip veeerrrry….veeerrrry slowly.

The longer it takes, the stronger the coffee. Notice that there are only a few drops per second. For me, I can’t wait any longer than 5 minutes. If the coffee is dripping too fast, then use a small spoon or tip of knife to screw the press on tighter, 1 turn clockwise. Or if it’s dripping too slow, unscrew 1 turn counterclockwise.

While it’s dripping, go get some ice in a glass. You’ve got nothing else to do!

Step 6: Once it’s finished, stir well.

You can set your coffee maker on top of its overturned lid to prevent dripping onto your nice table.

Step 7: Pour over ice and enjoy!

See how happy Vietnamese Iced Coffee makes me?

Pho Ga: Vietnamese Chicken Noodle Soup

SteamyKitchen — Sat, 14 Jul 2007 14:21:04 +0000

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.

Believe it or not, I’m actually more crazy and bold now that I’m in my mid-thirties. When I was younger, I cared deeply about what people thought of me. Now I live in a very tame, sorta Stepford Wives-ish, suburban neighborhood (well, I guess any place is tame compared to Hollywood Blvd.) I kind of feel its my duty as an Official Ambassador of Chaos & Confusion to cause a little bit of trouble, you know, stir the pot a bit, just to make sure that my house doesn’t get sucked into the vortex of boring, bland and god-forbid…NORMAL.

My Modern Asian version of Pho Ga, Vietnamese Chicken Noodle Soup, takes everything that I learned from T’s Mom, Into the Vietnamese Kitchen and simplifies it just a bit for the home cook, but still as wonderful and authentic as it can be.

Pho Ga – Vietnamese Chicken Noodle Soup Recipe

serves 4

You can judge how good a Pho soup is by how much concentrated flavor is packed in the broth while still retaining a clean, uncloudy, clear broth. I like my Pho without Sriracha hot sauce or Hoisin sauce….I really enjoy the purity of the chicken broth without anything to hide its flavor and aroma.

There are 2 very important steps to a clear but intense broth – 1) parboiling the chicken to get rid of the impurities 2) charring the ginger and onion for a naturally sweet, robust flavor.

A note on fish sauce – I prefer the Three Crabs brand. Choose a fish sauce light in color…it should look like brewed tea. Anything darker than that (looking like Coca Cola) is inferior quality.

======================

1 whole organic chicken (4-5lbs)
1 whole onion, unpeeled and cut in half
3-inch chunk of ginger, unpeeled

(A) Broth spices
2 tbl whole coriander seeds
4 whole cloves
2 whole star anise
2 tbl sugar (or rock sugar)
2 tbl fish sauce
small bunch of cilantro stems only, tied in bunch with twine

(B) Accompaniments at table
1 lb dried rice noodles (about 1/4″ wide)
2 cups bean sprouts, washed & tails pinched off
cilantro tops – leaves and tender stems
1/2 cup shaved red onions
1/2 lime, cut into 4 wedges
Sriracha hot sauce
Hoisin sauce
sliced chili

Place ginger and onion on a small baking sheet. The top of the onion should be about 4″ from the oven’s heating element. Set to broil on high for 15 minutes. Turn the onion and ginger occasionally, to get an even char. The skin should get dark and the onion/ginger should get soft. After cooling, rub to get the charred skin off the onion and use a butter knife to scrape the skin off the ginger. Slice ginger into thick slices.
In a large stockpot, fill with water and boil. With a sharp cleaver, carve the chicken breast meat off and reserve. With the rest of chicken whacking hard through the bones to get sections about 3″ big. The more bone that is exposed, the more marrow that gets in the broth (translation: rich, flavorful). You can even whack several places along the bone just to expose more marrow. When the water boils, add chicken sections (not breast) and boil on high for 5 minutes. You’ll see lots of foam and “stuff’ come up to the surface. Drain, rinse your chicken of the scum and wash your pot thoroughly. Refill with about 4 quarts of clean, cold water.

Add chicken, chicken breast meat, onion, ginger and all of (A) in the pot and cover. Turn heat to high – let it come to boil, then immediately turn heat to low. Prop lid up so that steam can escape. After 15 minutes, remove the chicken breasts, shred with your fingers when cooled and set aside (you’ll serve shredded chicken breast with the finished soup). With a large spoon, skim the surface of any impurities in the broth. Skimming every 20 minutes ensures a clear broth. Simmer a total of 1-1/2 hours. Taste and adjust seasoning with more fish sauce and or sugar.

Strain the broth, discard solids. Prepare noodles as per directions on package. Ladle broth, add shredded chicken breast and soft noodles in each bowl. Have (B) ingredients set at table for each person to add to their bowl.