Happy Birthday with Crock Pot Chicken Pho

Happy Birthday S!  It's my younger sister's birthday today, another year to add to her late twenties.  Ever since I can remember, my family holds a strong tradition for birthdays and eating noodles.  For a long, long life of the birthday family member, we must congregate and eat noodles the day (or a few) before a birthday.  It's a big "no no" if the noodles are eaten the day of or after a birthday!.  As an avid noodle-lover such as myself, I have no complaints about this particular family tradition.

There are also other rules to the tradition, such as while eating the noodles, one must not chew off and break the noodle strand in order to ensure a long and wonderful life.  Or if a family member is elsewhere and cannot join the noodles dinner, then that member must try their very best to eat noodles on the same day.  Over the years, the tradition of birthday noodles also turned into a strict set of menu.  The birthday member typically has a choice of 3 different types of noodles: Za Zang Mien, Lian Mien aka Cold Noodles (if you have a birthday in the summertime), and Beef Noodle Soup, as explained here.

However for this birthday, I volunteered (or was I commanded by S?!) to make birthday noodles for the entire family.  I wanted to change things up and Chicken Pho instantly came to mind.  To be honest, this is really just another excuse to use my handy-dandy crock pot.  I put all the ingredients together and turned on the crock pot to high on an early Sunday afternoon, and by that evening, my kitchen was filled with the distinct smell of pho, which was all worth the wait.

Slow-Cooked Chicken Pho with BBQ Chicken
Chicken Pho from Jaden Hair of SteamyKitchen for Bon Appetit

Optional Ingredients:
- 2 stalks green onions, finely chopped
- Hoisin sauce
- Sriracha hot sauce

A few tips...
...I used parts from a whole chicken - chicken wings, gizzards (except for liver), and the entire chicken body after separating the breasts, legs, and excess skin.  Since you are just cooking the broth, save the good parts for something else and use as much as the miscellaneous parts as you can.  I used the chicken breasts for the BBQ Chicken portion of this recipe.
...I did not use whole coriander seeds because after I had put all the ingredients in the crock pot, I realized I did not have this ingredient.  I made beef pho before so I thought I had all the spices, but apparently, chicken pho is a little different.  Even without the coriander seeds, it still turned out tasty.
...for my crock pot size and amount of water, it took 5 1/2 hours to cook the broth.  The longer, the better.
...remember to salt your broth when it's close to done.  The recipe doesn't include any salt but to have a tasty bowl of pho, use salt!

BBQ Chicken adapted from Vietnamese BBQ Pork Salad, Savory Sweet Life

Ingredients
- 2 chicken breasts
- 1 Tbsp soy sauce
- 1/4 cup fresh lime juice
- 2 Tbsp fish sauce
- 1/4 cup water
- 2 Tbsp of olive oil
- 2/3 cup sugar
- salt and pepper to taste
- 1/2 onion, roughly chopped

Steps
1. Combine ingredients except for chicken and onions in a bowl.  Put bowl in microwave and ensure all the sugar melts.

2. Place chicken and onions bowl and marinate for at least 1 hour.

3. Grill chicken breasts over medium heat and cook until done.  Let chicken sit for about 5 minutes and cut into slices.

When the broth and BBQ chicken are done, assemble pho with soup, noodles, BBQ chicken slices, bean sprouts, sliced onions, green onions, and cilantro.  Pair with hoisin sauce and Sriracha hot sauce.

Serves 4-6.

Vietnamese BBQ Pork Vermicelli (The Cheating Way)

I am calling this recipe "the cheating way" is because of two reasons... one, I already had Chinese barbequed pork courtesy of my parents as part of their take-home items from our Sunday dinners, and two, not all of the items for a typical Vietnamese vermicelli dish were used because I did not have them in my fridge.  This hodgepodge of food ended up to be equally delicious!

Vietnamese Barbecued Pork Vermicelli
Adapted from Barbecued Lemongrass Beef, Steamy Kitchen

Ingredients
- 10 oz narrow flat rice sticks (same as the ones I used for pho)
- 2 large Persian cucumbers, thinly sliced
- 1 large carrot, thinly sliced
- 4 iceberg lettuce leaves, thinly sliced
- ready-to-go Chinese barbequed pork, sliced

Fish Sauce:
- 2 chilies, sliced and deseeded for desired spiciness (I was excited to use my own-grown Fresno chilies!)

- 3 cloves of garlic
- 1/4 cup sugar
- 3 Tbsp lime juice
- 1 Tbsp rice vinegar
- 3 Tbsp fish sauce
- 1/2 cup water
- 1/2 tsp salt
- sliced carrots (optional)
- chili-garlic sauce (optional)

Tools
- mortar or food processor

Steps
1. Soak the rick sticks in water for about an hour prior to cooking.

2. In the meantime, make the fish sauce by mashing chilies and garlic together with a mortar or food processor. Then add all of the other ingredients (except carrots and chili-garlic sauce) until sugar is dissolved.  Add sliced carrots for decoration, and if the sauce is not spicy enough, add chili-garlic sauce until desired spiciness is reached.

3. Slice all the vegetables (cucumbers, carrots, and lettuce) and the barbequed pork.

4. Cook the soaked rice sticks in hot boiling water for about 1-2 minutes (and not any longer!).  Drain the noodles in a colander and rinse with cold water.

5. Place all the ingredients together - noodles at the bottom, then vegetables and pork, then pour about 1 to 1.5 Tbsp fish sauce over the noodles.  Mix and enjoy!

Serves 4.

A few tips...
...if you don't have parents that can supply you with BBQ pork, run out to the nearest Chinese supermarket and look for the hot foods counter to purchase pork!
...after the rick sticks are rinsed with cold water and is resting, it can quickly clump into big balls of noodles.  Don't worry (as I did...) because as soon as you pour the magical fish sauce on it, the noodles will once again loosen up.

Phở (Vietnamese Beef Noodle Soup)

I love noodles.  Soup noodles, stir fried noodles, or pasta... yum yum yum!  A few months ago while "toy shopping" at Sur La Table, I found the cookbook Noodles Every Day by Corinne Trang.  It was even on sale, so I had to get it!

This cookbook contains noodle recipes from almost every region of Asia, from Chinese to Korean, Japanese to Vietnamese.  After quickly scanning the book, I knew the first recipe I wanted to try was Phở.

Phở (Vietnamese Beef Noodle Soup)
from Noodles Every Day, by Corinne Trang

Beef Stock
Ingredients
- 2 lbs raw meaty beef bones, such as oxtail or short ribs
- 3 quarts of water
- 1/2 large yellow onion
- 4 whole cloves
- 4 whole star anise
- 1 four-inch cinnamon stick
- 3 slices of ginger
- 4 scallions, trimmed and crushed
- 1 Tbsp fish sauce
- 2 tsp sugar
- 1/2 tsp white or black peppercorns
- salt to taste

Tools
- stockpot
- colander

Steps
1. Put beef bones in a large stockpot with enough water to cover.  Bring to boil over high heat and cook for 10 minutes to get rid of bone and blood particles.  Drain, reserve the meaty bones, and rinse the pot well.

2. Return the beef bones to the same stockpot, add 3 quarts of water, and bring to boil over high heat.  Reduce heat to low and add onions, cloves, star anise, cinnamon, ginger, scallions, fish sauce, sugar, and peppercorns.

3. Simmer, partially covered, for 4-5 hours, until reduced to about 1.5 to 2 quarts.  Ocassionally skim off any foam from the surface.  Salt broth to taste.  Strain and discard solids, reserving the meaty bones to pick on if desired.

Yields 1.5 to 2 quarts

Phở 
Ingredients
- 8 oz dried narrow flat rice sticks, soaked in water until pliable (I used the Three Ladies Brand, Rice Stick (S) - small)

- about 1 lb eye of round steak, thinly sliced (in my opinion Japanese supermarkets has a higher quality of meat, so I used shabu shabu meat in this case.  It was the best decision!  The quality of the meat and the spices of the soup was a wonderful combo.)
- 1.5 to 2 quarts of Beef Stock
- fish sauce or salt to taste
- 1/2 yellow onion, thinly sliced
- 1 cup mung bean sprouts
- 1 lime, quartered
- 1 bunch fresh Thai basil or cilantro
- Hoisin sauce for serving (optional)
- chili-garlic sauce (eg. Sriracha) for serving (optional)

Steps
1. Bring a large pot of water to boil and cook the noodles until tender yet firm, about 10 seconds.  Drain and divide among bowls.  Layer a few beef slices over the noodles.

2. Meanwhile, in another large pot, bring the beef stock to a gentle boil over medium heat.  About 5 minutes before serving, add the onions and adjust seasoning with fish sauce or salt, if necessary.  Right before serving, raise the heat to high and bring the broth to a full boil.

3. Place mung bean sprouts, lime, and Thai basil or cilantro in a plate.  Bring to table so that each person can add vegetables to their noodle soup as desired.

4. Ladle the boiling hot broth along with onion slices over the beef and noodles, making sure to cover beef and noodles.  Serve with hoisin sauce and chili-garlic sauce if desired.

Serves 4