Vietnamese 'Pho Ga' Chicken Noodle Soup | Thuy Pham-Kelly

Hi there, I'm Thuy from The Little Viet Kitchen. I'm really excited to be here today because I'm about to share with you one of my favourite noodle dishes called Pho Gia. Pho Gia is chicken noodle soup. This is actually a national dish from Vietnam. It's a great dish because it's ever so simple to make yet you've got the full flavour of the chicken, you've got the spices that go with it and the herbs on top. It's really healthy and it tastes great. Okay, so I'm going to start today with roasting the spices. This is to bring out the fragrant flavour so when you put it in the broth it just spreads out evenly. I'm going to be using the star anise, just about five stars and then about a teaspoon of coriander seeds. Now today I'm cooking a portion for between four to six people so that should be enough. Now I just want you to lightly toast this about a minute or two. As soon as you can smell the aroma, lower the heat and you can take it onto the really exciting bit. This is my favourite part of making the broth. I'm going to roast the onions and about 20 grams of ginger. I'm going to use the open fire. Now the whole point of doing this is that you're actually trying to keep the flavours inside to bring out the flavours slowly when we're putting it in the broth. It's okay if it's going all black. A trick to know when it's ready is you should see the juice coming out from the onions when I start on the ginger. It smells really good. Okay so the next stage is actually to clean them but I want to show you a trick that I use to peel ginger. Use a spoon and you can just scrape off the skin. With the onion just cut the ends off, take the first layer of skin out. It smells edible already. Give that a good rinse, put it to one side and we start prepping the chicken. Very simple, just a quick cleaning. If you look at the legs here we don't want that so look for the knuckle because you're going right in the middle there where the joint is. Take that off for me. This dish is healthy. I'm going to take as much of the fat off as I can. Now from the top here if you just split it, don't open the whole chicken though. You want to still keep it nice and neat when it's cooking. Place the chicken into a pan of boiling water. So for this portion use three litres of water. The chicken is over there on high heat. I want you to lower the heat in a few minutes but whilst we're waiting we're going to prep the vegetables. The main vegetable is the daikon. It's also known as a mooli or a Chinese radish. I believe that this is the secret to actually making the broth really clear. If you can't get hold of it though feel free to use the swede. That's just as sweet and it's just as good. Use about one span of daikon and that should be good enough and peel off the skin. I'm going to halve it just so that it would fit in the pot. Put it in the broth with the ginger that we roasted earlier and the two onions. So at this point start lowering the heat. Now the heat is low I'm going to take away the foam on top. By doing this you're actually taking away the fat from the skin of the Okay so I'm going to put the spices that we roasted earlier in. I'm using a herb strainer, a tea strainer works well as well. I've got the five star anise here and the coriander seeds. Okay so I'm going to put it in here. Make sure it sits right at the bottom of the chicken. Leave it in for about half an hour and then take it out and that's it. All the hard work is over. So I'm an hour would be good. So whilst we're waiting for the pho broth to cook I want to start on preparing the noodles. Now I'm using here some rice noodles, it's called pho noodles and the secret to this is to soak it overnight. So I've done that and as you can see it's all fluffy and it's all ready to cook. When you actually boil it now it takes about two to three minutes and you see the change in colour. Two to three minutes is enough. Okay so the wait is nearly over, it's been an hour. So now I'm going to take the onions and the daikon out and I'm going to take out the chicken. Look at this, juicy huh? It's good to leave the chicken here to rest for about half an hour. When it's cooled down it's actually easier to tear. The broth is all ready for seasoning, it still has another half an hour to go. Okay I love this. This is fermented fish sauce, you can find that in most supermarkets. I'm gonna put just under a teaspoon, it's not Vietnamese unless you have fish sauce. Okay so I've got here rock sugar, now feel free to use normal sugar, that's absolutely fine. Traditionally though I do prefer to use this one, the sweetness of it is more subtle and it looks really pretty. Okay I'm gonna use this much, this looks like it's gonna be about six grams, which is just over a teaspoon. This helps to balance out the flavour with the fish sauce. As for salt, about half a teaspoon is good. For the last part of the seasoning I'm adding a good handful of pilled shallots. Okay so after seasoning, keep cleaning. The goal of this broth is always to keep the broth as clear as possible, yet so much flavour. You look there, that's beautiful. Half an hour and we're good to eat. So for this dish to be authentic there are certain finishing touches on top, like bean sprouts and the lime and the chilli. Just about two slices is good. Now you must have coriander, it's fantastic, it smells really great, I love it. But I prefer taking just the stems, you don't need too much. Now with the spring onions, I like using the top to turn them into curls. So the trick is to slice them really thin, like that. If you soak them into cold water, five minutes take it out and they turn into curls like that. When you're dressing, it gives volume and it looks great. Take the white part, just a little bit. The other important herb that I think really makes the dish is the sweet basil here. Now this is also known as Vietnamese basil or Thai basil. It adds a kick to the chicken when you eat it right at the end. And that's it, we're ready to go. At the bottom of the bowl, put the bean sprouts, a handful of the noodles. Okay that's a full bowl. The chicken has now cooled down. The best part is the leg. Just tear it, plate it around the bowl. Look at that, can you see it tearing off? This is wonderful. A bit of the breast chicken is good too. That's amazing right? This really is delicious. Okay so I've put it all placed there, I'm going to sprinkle the herbs on top. Okay I'm going to bring the broth over. So the yummy shallots I had earlier, the onion strings, put a whole load on, it's all good. I think it's really important to make something pretty. I don't know if it's true with you but I often eat with my eyes way before I get to eat the dish. Put the chillies there. Don't forget to squeeze the lime, this will balance out the dish. So I've got dried shallots here, you can buy them ready-made. I like to sprinkle them on top. Okay so this is it, this is my phở gà, my Vietnamese chicken noodle soup. It's really healthy, it's great for you, it's so fresh. So yeah, healthy food doesn't have to be boring. All the ingredients that I've used you can see, they're fresh herbs that you can just grab from the supermarket so do go ahead and try and make it. And if you've enjoyed the video today, do give me a thumbs up, that would be really nice, and subscribe to Food Tube below. If you want to see more of my work, I do have an Instagram page or a Facebook page, and if you're ever in London and you really want to taste it for real, come to the Little Bit Kitchen and I'll make you a bowl. Thank you for watching, see you soon, bye!