Authentic Pho Ga – Vietnamese Chicken Noodle Soup

If you feel like a cooking project, pho ga or vietnamese chicken noodle soup from scratch is a fun one with amazing results

Ingredients

The aromatics
3 inch piece of ginger
1 large yellow onion
The chicken
1 3-4 lb whole chicken grain-fed, air chilled
8 cups chicken stock homemade or low sodium
1/2 inch piece of ginger not the roasted ginger
4-5 green onions
1 Tbsp kosher salt
The broth
2 Tbsp brown sugar - more if you like it sweeter
The bones from the poached chicken
The roasted ginger and onion
1/4 cup fish sauce - or more - you will need to taste to decide
Pho ga
16 oz rice noodles
thinly sliced green onions
thinly sliced shallot

Garnishes

You can go in all sorts of directions here. Mint cilantro, sawtooth herb (culantro), red chili, lime, bean sprouts, hoisin sauce, Sriracha etc. Go with what you like. What you can get. It will work out.

Instructions

The aromatics

Pre-heat your oven to 350F.
Roast the onion and ginger for 1 hour.
Let cool. Slice the onion in half and the ginger into 1/2 inch pieces.
The chicken
In a 5-6 quart dutch oven or pot combine the whole chicken, 4-5 green onions, the 1/2 inch piece of ginger and the salt. Add 8 cups of stock plus enough water to cover the chicken. If you can't quite cover the chicken start it breast side down.
Bring to a simmer and poach for about 20 minutes (breast side down if needed). Flip the bird and continue to poach until the chicken reaches about 155F in the breast and 165F in the thigh - about 10 minutes. Use an instant read thermometer - there's no other safe way to do this. The chicken will continue to cook after you remove it from the broth so give yourself some room. You are going for a final internal temperature of 165F in the breast and 175F in the thigh.
Set the chicken aside to cool enough to handle. Remove chicken from the bones. You don't have to be perfect. You have lots of chicken.

The broth
Remove and discard the 1/2 inch piece of ginger. Keep the stock and green onion in the pot.

Return the chicken bones to the pot along with the roasted ginger and onion.
Add the brown sugar.
Let simmer 3-4 hours, loosely covered.
Strain. You should have about 10 cups of broth. If you have less, add some water to make up for evaporation.
Refrigerate until ready for use. If you refrigerate you can skim the fat and reserve. That way you can add a tsp or so per bowl as they do in Vietnam.
When ready to serve heat the broth to just below a boil and add the fish sauce. This is where the final seasoning happens. Your broth is still under-salted. Start adding salt a half a tsp at a time. You want it pretty salty - adding in the chicken and the noodles blunts the saltiness some. I would guess around 2 tsp more salt give or take...
Pho ga
Do your prep. Slice or shred the chicken. Cut up some green onion. Prep your herbs. Slice your shallot as thinly as you possibly can. Slice some red chili. Cut up the lime. Pre-heat your bowls. Make sure your broth is good and hot. Have it all ready to go. Once you start things go fast and cold pho is not good pho.

Cook the noodles
Here's a trick to cook rice noodles for pho that I found buried at the bottom of an Epicurious recipe. Soak your rice noodles in cold water for about 30 minutes.
At the same time, bring a large pot of water to a boil.
Put the soaked noodles in a big strainer and drop it into the boiling water.
Stir the noodles and start checking them for texture after about 30 seconds. They should be done in under a minute. You want them slightly toothy as they will cook a bit more in the broth.
When you have them how you want them, pull the noodles and divide into 4 bowls.
Top the noodles with the chicken and sprinkle with green onions and sliced shallots.
Pour 1/4 of the broth into each bowl.
Serve with the condiments on the table to let people flavour their pho as they like it.

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