Cháo Gà Và Gỏi Gà - Rice Porridge with Chicken Slaw

Difficulty: Medium

Rice porridge is usually the first meal that parents introduce to infants as their first solids.  It is a rice dish boiled in large amounts of water to produce a soft silky texture.   Rice porridge is universal in all East and Southern Asian countries.  Brown Asians call this dish congee or a variation on the word.  Yellow Asians call this dish jook or a variation of it.  It is feed to young and old, sick or healthy.  Some people would reminisce about the comfort it brings.

This recipe makes use to the water that is left over when boiling a chicken to make the porridge.  Vietnamese people love to mix texture when eating, so the crunchiness of the cabbage and carrots is a wonderful contrast to the soft silkiness of the porridge.

1 whole chicken
1 cup of rice
1/4 cup of Vietnamese coriander
1/2 organic onion
1 bag of Cole slaw or you can shred cabbage and carrots by hand
Salt
Ginger powder
Chicken bouillon cubes or powder
1 stem of chopped green onion/scallion
1/4 cup of cilantro

Nuoc Cham


Clean and pat whole chicken.  If your chicken comes with gizzards, you can used them if you like.  Split the chicken in half, down the breast  and flip chicken over.  I like to discard the backbone because I think it makes the broth cloudy, but you can use it if you like.  Add the chicken into your stockpot and fill up the pot to the chicken is submerged.  Boil on a low heat, making sure that it doesn't come to a rolling boil to keep the broth clear.  Occasionally skim to remove any impurities and scum that floats to the top.

Once the chicken is done, remove the bird and set aside to cool.  Skim any impurities and scum from the broth and add the rice.  Cook the rice at low to medium heat.  Stir occasionally to make sure that rice doesn't stick to the bottom.  When you see that the porridge is thicken and the rice has bloomed, you would seasoned it to your taste.  Start off with the chicken bouillon.  I like to use just enough to get a nice aroma of chicken.  Then add the ginger powder.  (If you don't have access to ginger powder, you can always add a piece of ginger about an inch long into the water when boiling your chicken.  Make sure to cut the ginger into small enough pieces to get the essence of the ginger out but not too small that you can't scoop out the pieces before adding the rice.) Then add salt to your taste.

In a large bowl, add your Cole Slaw, Vietnamese coriander leaves, thinly sliced onion, and cilantro.  Mixed together.  I like to have large chunks of chicken add to my slaw, but you can have it on the side.

When you are ready to eat, garnish the porridge with some chopped green onions and dress it with the nuoc cham (recipe below).

Crock-pot Phở

Difficulty: Medium

Pho, a Vietnamese beef noodle soup.  It costed about $15.00 to make and it made about 8 bowls, so it last the whole day.  Each bowls averages out to $1.88 a bowl.  I used oxtail for my recipe.  It is a lot more expensive to use oxtail but for the amount of beef flavor, it is worth the extra money.  If you don't want to spend the money, get soup bones that has the marrow exposed.  I like to buy the bones from the local ethnic stores, but a lot of the chains are carrying them, depending on the neighborhood.  The great thing about the ethnic stores is how they cut the bones, especially the oxtail.  My local Publix cuts the oxtail at the joints, while the Chinese and Latino markets will cut the pieces in between the joints to expose more of the bone.  Plus, it is cheaper to buy them from the ethnic markets.

Fast and cheap pho
Broth/stock:
1 lb of oxtail or 2 lbs of soup bones
4 qts water
8 points star anise
1 cinnamon sticks
1 black cardamom pod
1 tsp fennel seeds
1/2 tsp cloves
1 golf ball size piece of yellow rock sugar
2 Tbsp fish sauce
1/2 whole medium onion
1 carrot (optional)
2 celery stalks (optional)

Bowls:
2 package of medium size banh pho noodles or pad thai noodles
1/2 pound of London broil, par-frozen and cut thinly
1 bunch of green scallions/spring onions
1/2 bunch of cilantro
1 cup of Thai basil optional
Culantro optional
1 lime
6 cloves of garlic
1 Tbsp of neutral oil like canola
Hoisin


To make the broth:
Start up the large crock-pot add the 4 quarts of water.  While you are doing that, start up another pot and parboil the bones.  Parboiling the bones will help remove the scum so that you will have a nice clear broth.
While waiting for the bones, stick a couple of toothpicks into the half onion and over a hot dry pan, brown the onion's cut end and toast the cinnamon sticks, and star anise. Place the spices into a teaball or cheesecloth and toss into the crockpot with the browned half onion.  When the bones get a good boil on it, dump the contents out and wash the bones very well in cold water.  Make sure to rub the bones to get off any impurities. After you cleaned the bones, place them into the crock-pot and simmer on high for 4-6 hours. (High setting on crock-pot if you are planning to make pho for breakfast.)

About an hour before eating, place the package of dry noodles into a large bowl or container.  Pour boiling water over the noodles and allow it to sit for about 5-7 minutes. The noodles will cook itself. Dump out any remaining water so the noodles doesn't get soggy.  Prepare to slice the London broil into paper thin slices.  It is easier to slice it if the meat is still semi frozen or is stiff because isn't moving around.  You want it as thin as possible.  Set aside.

Whack the garlic with the side of your knife to take off the paper on the garlic and roughly chop the garlic. Heat up a small pot with the oil and drop the garlic in, stirring it until the garlic is golden brown. Remove from heat. Cut up the onions and cilantro. Wash the Thai basil and culantro well. Cut the limes in half, at the equator and quarter each half.

To prep the bowls: in a large bowl, place about 1 cup of noodles in with a few slices of London broil to cover up the noodles. Add the scallions, cilantro, a squeeze in a wedge of lime and spoon some fried garlic in the bowl.  Ladle the piping hot broth over the noodles.  You may need some hoisin if you are using the soup bones. Tear some basil and culantro in, if you desire.

If you don't plan to eat pho all day, you can freeze half the broth.  It freezes well.