Pho Ga (Vietnamese Chicken rice noodles soup)

Happy International Women' Day to all of you !! I would like to present this light and healthy noodles to all of you.


I like Vietnamese pho, i took pho for almost every lunch when I was in Ho Chi Minh last year. I try to cook this at home recently, also partly due to super hot weather here , I lost appetite to rice which serve in every dinner. As lime juice and fresh herbs are added to pho, so it is very appetite and refreshing.

At first, I was not too sure what spices added to the broth, luckily I found the Vietnamese beef pho recipe in Pig Pig's corner. I always have problem to buy beef in market here, so I changed beef to chicken, and omitted some of the spices..Thanks to Pig Pig's corner for kind sharing.


-From left, coriander seeds, cloves, cinnamon stalk, star anise

Pho Ga / Vietnamese Chicken rice noodles soup
(printable recipe)

The broth
4 Chicken carcasses
1 big onion (cut wedges)
½ tbsp sugar
1 tbsp fish sauce
1 tbsp salt or to taste
4 whole cloves
1 whole star anise
2 tbsp coriander seeds
1 cinnamon stalk
2.5 litres water

Ingredients
500g Vietnamese rice noodles (rinse in hot water)
500g whole Chicken breast (cook in the broth for 30mins, removed and shred the meat)
200g Bean sprouts (washed and tails pinched off)
Fresh basil leaves
Fresh coriander leaves
Fresh red chilli
Limes


1) To make the Chicken pho broth: Pan fried onion wedges till slightly brown. Place all spices (cloves, star anise, coriander seeds and cinnamon stick) in a cotton pouch. In a large pot, add in chicken carcasses,water, onion and spices pouch, bring to boil and simmer over low flame for 1hour. Season with sugar, fish sauce and salt, try to make it more salty as soup will dilute once added noodles. Strain the broth and discard the solids.

2) To make the bowl: Bring broth to boil, fill bowl with rice noodles and bean sprouts, and ladle the hot broth into bowl. Garnish with the rest of fresh veggie and shredded chicken. Serve hot.

Happy Cooking !!