Chicken Pho at my house!

 

One of my favorite dishes of all time has to be chicken pho and I'm super excited that I can make it at home now. I've made this dish so many times now that I think I know the recipe like the back of my hand. And one of the great things about making chicken pho at home is that I can totally tailor the flavors to exactly how I like it! I love my broth to be a good mix of sweet and salty, so you can adjust the sugar and salt below to your own taste. I had my brother and a friend over for lunch today, and we went through the entire pot of pho, each person devouring about 2 bowls each! This may seem like an intimidating dish at first, but it's relatively easy compared to the normal beef pho recipe. 

One thing I do want to call out is that I recommend using organic chicken for this recipe. The broth will turn out a lot less oily and fatty and there will be barely any chicken residue to scoop out of the broth.

Ingredients:

1 large whole chicken

1 large yellow onion, left whole with skin on
1 large shallot, left whole with skin on
3 inch piece of ginger, coarsely peeled
8 cubes of chicken bouillon
palm full of rock sugar
1 cinnamon stick
2 whole star anise
2 teaspoon sea salt
1 package of rice noodles
1 large yellow onion sliced into thin slices
4 green onions, finely chopped

Rinse the chicken under cold water and thoroughly pat dry. Place the onion, shallot and ginger under the broiler for approximately 5 minutes to char. In a large stock pot, place the chicken and add enough cold water to cover the entire chicken and cook on medium high heat. Add the charred onion, shallot and ginger. Bring to a boil and remove any white foam/residue that surfaces. Reduce heat to medium low and cook for about 45 minutes, checking the broth frequently and removing any foam from the surface.

Remove the chicken and continue simmering the broth on low heat. Once the chicken is cool to handle, remove the meat and shred the meat; return the bones to the broth. Add the chicken  bouillon, rock sugar and salt to the broth and continue to watch over the broth and remove any foam/residue that surfaces. Occasionally taste the broth for a good balance between salty and sweet.  Continue simmering the broth for another 30 minutes.

Remove the chicken bones, onion, shallot and ginger and discard. Strain the broth into a new large stock pot. The final broth should be clear of all residue and should now be a savory combination of salty and sweet. In a small pan, lightly toast the cinnamon stick and star anise. Add to the broth and simmer for about 15 minutes. Remove the cinnamon stick and star anise from the broth right before serving.

Cook the rice noodles per the instructions on the package. To prepare the final dish, add some cooked rice noodles to a bowl, add in some shredded chicken, sliced onions and chopped green onions. Ladle a generous amount of broth to the bowl. Some additional optional toppings are bean sprouts, thai basil, fresh squeezed lime, hoisin sauce and siracha sauce.

And if you don't have a group of people to help go through the broth with you, the broth freezes really well so you can have multiple servings of chicken pho later in the week!