Chicken Larb

Regarded as the national dish of Laos, Larb is a sour and spicy meat salad often made with duck, chicken or pork and sometimes with the additional offal tossed into the mix. It's deliciously tasty and incredibly easy to prepare. All you need is some type of mince meat, chicken is my favourite and various herbs- what ever you can get your hands on. Toss it all together with a simple dressing of lime juice with fish sauce and in no time you'll have an amazingly delicious salad. 

Hainanese chicken (Ga Hai Nam) - An iconic Singapore hawker dish.

Succulent and tender chicken, poached in an aromatic stock. Dressed with seasoned soya sauce, ginger, shallots and coriander. An incredible combination of flavours and texture, truly  making this dish one of the most iconic, delicious and pleasurable  thing to eat.

Originated in the Hainan Provence of China, this humble chicken and rice dish quickly gain popularity throughout Asia. Particularly in Singapore, adopting it  as one their nation dishes. I am sure many of you have eaten Hainanese chicken rice by now. Quick, satisfying and relatively cheap, it's a specialty found in many food courts throughout Asia.

Mi Vit Quay (Roast duck noodle soup)

Often when I do the grocery shopping at my local Chinese grocer, I find myself stopping by the Chinese roast duck shop next door. Most of the time I would takeaway half a roast duck to have on it's own or with crusty bread. My craving for Chinese BBQ roast meat comes from my father who used to make it to sell at the market in Vietnam. The maltose lacquered and wafer thin skin of the duck is amazing. The combination of mix spices (cinnamon, ginger and star anise) stuffed into cavity to infuse an unique and irresistible flavour like no other.
Mi vit quay is adapted from another classic noodle soup Mi vit tim. This is a much easier recipe to prepare and with very few ingredients. The broth is amazingly aromatic and fills the whole house with the smell of cinnamon, ginger and star anise. It will have your friends and guest thinking you spent many hours preparing this soup.

Recipe

1 Chinese roast duck, reserve the sauce from the duck's cavity
2 onion, peeled
1 dozen dried shaitaki mushroom
4 Lt chicken stock or can chicken stock
1 tsp five spice

500g fresh egg noodles
1 bunch of gai lan (Chinese broccoli)
or choy sum (Chinese flowering cabbage)
1/2 cup spring onion, chopped
1/2 cup coriander, chopped
1/2 cup crispy Asian shallots

Method

Duck broth

1. When buying roast duck, ask the seller to reserve the sauce from cavity and cut it into 8 portions.
2. Soak the dried shaitaki mushrooms into in hot water and set aside.
3. In a large stock pot, bring chicken stock to simmer and add the onions, shaitaki mushrooms, five spice and reserve duck sauce. Skim off any impurity that rises to the surface and let it simmer for 1/2 an hour. Check for seasoning, add little more salt if needed.

To serve

1. Add the duck pieces to the duck broth.
2. In a stock pot, bring 3Lt of water to a rolling boil and cook the gai lan and set aside.
3. Using a wired noodle strainer, add a handful of egg noodles into the strainer.
4. Lower it into the boiling water and stir the noodle for about 30 seconds to a minute.
5. Remove and strain the egg noodles into a large soup bowl.
6. Add the duck, mushrooms, gai lan and top up with the soup.
7. Enjoy with some spring onions and coriander.

Note: If using can stock, use 2Lt of can chicken stock to 2Lt of water.





This is my entry to Delicious Vietnam #17, a monthly blogging event celebrating Vietnamese cuisine which was started by Anh of A Food Lover’s Journey and Hong & Kim of Ravenous Couple. Thanks to Phuoc of phuocndelicious for hosting this month.

Gio ga (Vietnamese chicken and cabbage salad)

This is an amazingly delicious salad that can be whipped up in no time. Like most Vietnamese dishes, it relies on the freshness of produce, texture and balance. I only use free range chicken for this salad, not only because it taste better but it also has a slightly firmer texture that I like. This beautiful crunchy salad can be eaten on it's own or the way I like it, is with congee made from the poaching liquid. The contrast between hot and cold, soft and crunchy, sweet and sour is just amazing. This is everything I love about Vietnamese food, it's simple, dead easy and delicious.


Recipe

1 kg chicken (free range), poached and shredded
1/4 cabbage, finely sliced
1 red onion, finely sliced
1 cup herbs (Vietnamese mint, mint and coriander), roughly chopped

2 tbsp sugar
2.5 tbsp white vinegar
pinch of salt

1 cup Nuoc cham
1/4 cup roasted peanuts, roughly chopped
1/4 cup crispy eshallots
2 chilli chopped

Method

1. In a small bowl, combine vinegar, salt and sugar. Stir until sugar and salt dissolves, add the red onion to the vinegar.
2. In a large bowl, add cabbage, herbs, chicken and vinegar mixture. Gently toss to well combined.
3. Transfer to a serving platter and sprinkle roasted peanuts, crispy eshallots, chilli and serve with Nuoc cham.