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!

Cakes for Japan Part One

One of the things I love about my work colleagues is that they're always willing to part with cash if it's for charity. If there is cake involved in exchange for money for charity, then even more so! A few colleagues had expressed their concerns about the devastating earthquake that affected Japan, so we decided to do something to raise some money for the Red Cross tsunami appeal. I mentioned the Cakes for Japan events, started off my Miss Cakehead, that had been taking place up and down the country and suggested we held our own mini Cakes for Japan bake sale.

Now not wanting to be predictable, I obviously decided to make cupcakes. As I would be baking in the evening straight after work I wouldn't have much time to make wildly different varieties of cupcakes, so I decided to stick with making chocolate cake bases, then top with with different flavoured frostings.

After a while deliberating over which flavours to make, I settled on Malteser, Oreo and Mint Choc Chip, all which match perfectly with a chocolate cake.

I needed a pretty quick to make chocolate cake recipe, as I was intending to make 36 cupcakes plus minis, so decided to try out Martha Stewart's one bowl chocolate cupcake. The cake, as the name suggests, is made all in one bowl and uses the simple method of adding wet ingredients to dry. The whole process literally lakes a few minutes and there is no need to wait for butter and sugar to be creamed. If you want cupcakes fast, then this is the recipe for you!

All in all we made a total of £150 on the day. Luckily, work is going to match fund this so £300 will be winging its way to the Red Cross this week.

I am going to be baking and volunteering at Cakes for Japan Huddersfield, which is being organised by Marie Claire Nouveau Cakes, who I met at the last Clandestine Cake Club. Come along to the demonstration Zone at Queensgate Market on Sat 23rd April and help support the cause, buy buying lovely treats from a number of generous folk. See the website for more details.

One Bowl Chocolate Cupcakes (Makes 18)

Ingredients

220g plain flour
70g cocoa powder
340g caster sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons bicarb of soda
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
3/4 teaspoon salt
2 large eggs
180ml warm water
180ml buttermilk
45ml vegetable or sunflower oil (or any oil that does not have a strong flavour)
1 tsp vanilla extract

Method

Preheat the oven to 180C / 350F (Fan 160C)
Line a muffin tin(s) with liners
Sift the flour, cocoa, bicarb, baking powder, sugar and salt into a large bowl.

Make a small well in the middle of the dry ingredients and then add the eggs, buttermilk, water, oil and vanilla and mix until all just combined and smooth.

Divide the batter between the cases, filling each no more than 2/3 full.

Bake in the oven for 18-22 minutes, rotating halfway if you need to. The tops should be springy - test with a cake tester to make sure they are done. Leave to cool in the pans for 5-10 mins, then turn out onto the cooling tray. (For minis, bake for 10 minutes).
Once cool they are ready to be topped with a number of different frostings.


Cookies & Cream (Oreo)

First off, just to mix this one up a bit, I actually baked half an Oreo into the bottom of this cake, so for these ones, I twisted off the tops of some Oreos and placed the half with the biscuit filling, filling side up, in the bottom of the liner before adding the cake batter and baking for the time specified above.

The frosting is essentially a cream cheese frosting, with the addition of a few of the leftover Oreo halves crushed, then foled through at the very end. It's important that you don't add the crumbs until the end, other wise you'll end up with grey frosting. Not attactive!

Ingredients
100g unsalted butter (room temp)
600g icing sugar
200g full fat cream cheese
4-5 oreo halves, crushed

Method
Beat the butter and icing sugar until mixed well - this may take a few minutes. Then add the cream cheese and beat slowly until soft and fluffy. Throw in the crushed Oreos and carefully fold in. It's then ready to be used to top the cakes. I topped the cakes off with a mini Oreo.

I did have an issue with the Oreo half sticking at the bottom of the liner, so next time will add the Oreo after adding a spoonful of batter to the liners.

Malteser Cupcakes

The recipe for the frosting can be found on a previous Malteser cupcake post.

Mint Choc Chip

Rather than messing around with chopping chocolate and peppermint extract, I just made up a batch of buttercream and then added a box of chopped up After Eight mints. The beauty of this frosting is that the longer you leave the buttercream, the more the mint flavour seems to infuse through. However, feel free to add grated chocoalte and creme de menth instead if you don't like the idea of using a whole box of After Eights.

Ingredients
150g unsalted butter
500g icing sugar
50ml milk or cream
300g box of After Eights
Green food colouring (optional)

Method
Beat the butter, icing sugar and milk until mixed well - this may take a few minute, until soft and fluffy. Add a few drops of food colouting (if desired) and mix until you get a nice mint shade. Throw in the chopped After Eights and carefully mix through throughly. It's then ready to be used to top the cakes. I decorated the cakes with some Poppets which I found in the supermarket.

I won't be making these flavours for Huddersfield Cakes for Japan - keep your eyes peeled to see what I make next, or come along on the 23rd, support us and see for yourself!