SERIES: soup & chicken pho
If I could be great at making two things, it’d be a richly flavorful, brothy soup and a whole roasted chicken. Simple dishes done extraordinarily well are my ambition in the kitchen. The extraordinary is hard to see – it’s not pompous or fancy. Instead, it’s mostly noticed in the taste and flavors developed. It doesn’t include any fancy online only ingredients. It’s usually made with things that you always have on hand and that are relatively inexpensive to procure.
When I was younger, I used to despise soups! After eating them, I was often left with a stomach that felt full of liquid (not substance). And felt like I’d get that really full feeling – like can’t eat another bite, but it’d only sustain for an hour or two. Kind of like when you eat a bowl of oatmeal for breakfast or a meatless pasta dish for dinner. I don’t feel that way anymore (at least about soups). I’m now a big fan of soups! On a cold day or night, there’s nothing like a good soup. Soup is a lowly dish – it’s usually inexpensive to make, can serve many or result in extra leftovers. And most soups tend to be full of you what you need – bone broth, vegetables, meat, nutrients, nourishment and empty of what you may not need – empty carbohydrates, excess calories, etc. There are many reasons to love soups as a home cook.
Search for cookbooks on soup, and you’ll come up empty handed. Sure, there are cookbooks out there, I have one from Williams Sonoma. But most are lists of ingredients, not techniques to make a really flavorful soup. When I’m talking excelling at making soup, it needs to exceed the sum of the parts. I don’t want to use store bought stock or broth and it has to take more than 30 minutes to pull together. No soup is going to be a great soup if it’s a 30 minute meal.
I have not arrived at the level of a great soup maker, but I am on a journey with the ambition to become a great one. In this series, I’ll share a few of my favorite soup recipes and some of the techniques I’ve learned along the way that have resulted in flavorful soups.
Kicking off this series, I’ll begin with the newest addition to my soup repertoire – Chicken Pho. Pho has got to be the king of all soup broths. It’s rich, it’s off the charts flavorful, and is the one you go to when you develop a cold in the winter. I remember when my husband and I got covid and my dear friend showed up with a delivery of Chicken Pho. It’s a soup that you can eat and crave when you’re sick and a soup that you’ll crave when you’re healthy and want a full palate of flavors. I’ve long thought that making Pho was intimidating. I imagine large stock pots full of bones and joints simmering for days in the kitchens of Vietnamese restaurants. And while that may all be true, this recipe makes Pho approachable and will result in a very flavorful soup. Give it a try on a Sunday. It takes time, but not a lot of work. And I’m confident you’ll be pleased with the result!
For a sneak peek ahead, here are additional soup recipes coming in this series:
- Italian Wedding
- Turkey & Wild Rice
- Potato Leek
- Minestrone
Chicken Pho
This is a wonderful chicken pho recipe that doesn't take as much effort to make as you may assume. It results in a rich amber broth full of chicken, onion, ginger, and star anise flavor. Make this at home on a cold day to nourish your body.
Ingredients
Broth
- 2 yellow onions, unpeeled and quartered
- 3 3" pieces of ginger, smashed
- 4 quarts cold water
- 3 LBS chicken wings
- 1 3.5 LB chicken, quartered
- 2 TSBP kosher salt
- 2 TSP sugar
- 1-2 pieces whole star anise
- 1 cinnamon stick
- 2-3 whole cloves
Garnishes
- 1 LB dried rice noodles
- 3 scallions, thinly sliced
- 1 yellow or sweet onion, very thinly sliced
- 1 cup torn basil leaves (Thai basil, preferably)
- 2 limes, cut into wedges
- chile garlic sauce or sriracha
- hoisin sauce
Instructions
Preheat the oven to 400F. Place the onions and ginger on a baking sheet and roast for 30 minutes. They should be soft and charred.
If possible, preheat a second oven to 450F. Toss chicken wings in olive oil and season with salt and pepper. Place chicken wings on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Bake for 50 minutes, turning half way. The wings should be golden brown on all sides.
In a large stockpot, add the cold water and bring to a boil. Add the roasted vegetables, chicken wings, and the quartered chicken and bring to a boil. Add the salt, sugar, star anise, cinnamon, and cloves. Lower heat to medium and simmer until the quartered chicken is cooked, about 30 minutes.
Remove the quartered chicken from the stock pot and allow to cool slightly. Once you're able, remove the chicken from the bones and return the skin and bones to the stock pot and cook for at least 2 additional hours. Refrigerate the chicken.
Strain the chicken broth into a large soup pot and bring to a rolling boil.
In a large bowl of warm water, soak the noodles for 20 minutes. Transfer to a large saucepan of salted boiling water and cook until soft.
To serve the pho, add a serving of noodles to a large soup bowl, top with scallion, onion, and chicken. Ladle the broth over the noodles. Add garnishes of choice.