Chicken Pho Therapy

Safe to say that despite my efforts at having a relatively healthy week, my plans were scuppered by a few things.

1. Clandestine Cake Club - I only ate a little bit of cake, honest!!
2. Dinner and wine with friends.
3. Barbecue

By Sunday I needed something, light and cleansing - something that as you eat, you can immediately feel that it's doing you some good. At times like these, for me, I rely on one thing - a chicken noodle soup.

But this isn't any old chicken soup, this is a pho ga, a Vietnamese chicken noodle dish, which does take time to make, but the results are wonderful. A light, clear broth which is carefully spiced but with a nice kick of chilli from the nuoc cham (a "dipping sauce" which is drizzled over the top of the dish.) This dish does take time to make, but best things comes to those and all that!

This recipe is adapted from Rick Stein's Eastern Odyssey and whilst I'm sure it's not 100% authentic, it's tasty as! I feel healthier by just looking at it!

Hanoi chicken noodle soup with bok choi (Pho Ga)

Adapted from Rick Stein (Serves 4-6)

Ingredients

1.5 kg whole chicken

A thumb sized piece of ginger, peeled and roughly chopped

1 onion, halved

5 cloves garlic, sliced 

10 cm cinnamon stick

1/2 tsp black peppercorns

1 tbsp light soy sauce

3 large pak choi 

400 g 1 cm-wide flat rice noodles 

4 tbsp fish sauce

To Serve

8-10 spring onions, chopped (I didn't have any so finely shredded a red onion)

A handful of coriander, leaves picked

A sprig of mint, leaves picked and roughly chopped

Lime wedges

Nuoc Cham (See recipe below)

Nuoc Cham

1-2 long red chillies, roughly chopped (feel free to deseed if you don't want too much heat!)

1 garlic clove, peeled and chopped

1/2 inch of ginger, finely chopped

1 tbsp sugar

2 tbsp lime juice

2 tbsp fish sauce

1 tbsp rice vinegar

3 tbsp water

Stir all of the ingredients above in a bowl until the sugar dissolves. This will keep for about a week in the fridge.

Method

Put the chicken, ginger, onion halves, garlic, cinnamon, salt and peppercorns into a deep pan in which the chicken fits quite snugly. Cover with 2 litres of water. Bring to the boil, skimming off any scum as it rises. Lower the heat, cover and leave to gently simmer for 20-30 minutes. Turn off the heat and leave the chicken and stock to cool for 40-60 minutes.

Separate the stalks from the leaves of the bok choi and finely shred them lengthways. Cut the leaves across into 3 cm-wide pieces. 

Lift the cooled chicken onto a plate and leave to cool. Drain the stock through a seive into a clean pan. Skin the chicken, pull the meat from the bones and break it into chunky pieces.

Bring a pan of unsalted water to the boil. Add the noodles, turn off the heat, cover and leave to soak for 10 min or until tender.

Bring the stock back to the boil, add the pak choi stalks and simmer for 2 min, then add the leaves and cook for a further 2 min. Then stir in the fish sauce.

Drain the noodles and divide among bowls. Top with cooked chicken, spring onions (or red onion) coriander and mint leaves. Ladle the steaming hot broth and bok choi over the top and spoon over the nuoc cham, and additional lime wedges on the side.

Feel cleansed and relaxed!

And then I Broke the Bird's Breast!

This is my second attempt at Nigella Lawson's Praised Chicken dish which is from her Kitchen book (one of my faves from 2010) and also featured in one of the TV Episodes.

It's one of those dishes that really makes you feel virtuous, as it's just poached chicken, veg and rice. Definitely one for January, it's a welcome change to all of the excesses of the Christmas and New Year. (Speaking of which, the decorations need to come down tonight!!) I was hoping that the fact it's full of chickeny goodness would cheer the husband up, as he had a bit of a nightmare with trains tonight! Well, this coupled with a few beers anyway. Think it worked!

I have made some slight tweaks to Nigella's original recipe, but its essentially the same. The only bit if kit you will need is a rather large pan that will fit the chicken. My Le Creuset only just fits everything in and it's 24cm wide and about 10 cm deep. I love one pot cooking and this is easy peasy.


Nigella's  Chicken

1 chicken, approx 1.5 kg (pref free range / organic please!)
A glass of white wine
2 carrots cut into batons
2 stalks of celery, chopped
2 leeks, each cut into 4 batons
4 garlic cloves, peeled but kept whole
A few sprigs of parsley
A few sprigs of thyme
Cold water

To Serve
Rice
Parsley

Untruss the chicken and then snip off its ankles (If it's not a better welfare bird then you won't have to do this as they will have already been removed) but don't throw them away!

Then press down on the breast of the bird until you hear its breastbone crack and the bird flattens slightly. Like Nigella, I really enjoyed this bit! Great if you feel like a bit of violence on a Thursday evening... If you're a wuss then skip this part, but be warned that it may not fit into your pan. Season the bird.

Splosh some olive oil into the pan and heat up slowly. Once it's warm enough, place the chicken in the pan, breast side down and turn the heat up. After a few minutes, the chicken should have browned so turn it over and pop in the bird ankles (Of course these are not for eating, unless you want to, but they will add flavour to the soup).

You don't need to completely cover the chicken

Add the white wine and let it bubble away slightly before adding the garlic, carrots, leeks and celery. Add the parsley and thyme (I tie them up with the elastic I untrussed the chicken with).

The add enough cold water so that most of the chicken is covered, bring to a rumbling simmer and then clamp the lid on.

The chicken should take around 1 hour 30mins - 45 mins. Once ready, remove from the pan and carve.

Serve the chicken, soup and veg with rice (I used basmati as this is all I had in the cupboard, but wild rice would be yum!) and an extra smattering of parsley. Not the prettiest of dishes, but it tastes brill. Felt so healthy that a glass of wine was in order to restore the balance...

This also leaves shed loads of leftover chicken as for some reason it goes a very long way and any leftover soup can be used as a stock. Bonus.