The Food Confessional

Posted by Sylvia

3 coffees with milk (I was finding it very hard to get going): 90 calories

Lunch: Cheese and Chard Omelettes

Dinner: Chicken Pho Soup

I made it based on this recipe. I simplified it slightly but I did follow the two primary instructions. I cut the breasts off of the raw chicken before beating it up to crack then bones and then I boiled the chicken hard for five minutes and then threw away the water. I poured a kettle of boiling water over the chicken to rinse it before making the broth and I didn’t need to scum it at all. I think I might do that as standard as it saves a lot of time standing in the kitchen and the resulting soup was lovely (full flavoured).

I roasted two onions and a chunk of ginger which I added into the water along with a carrot, some chard, a bay leaf and the spices given. The sweet taste of the onion and ginger really did come through, I was surprised. I added a sweetener in (Cliff uses them for tea) but I don’t think it was needed at all.

Then I strained the liquid, put it into the fridge to chill and then strained it again to get rid of all the fat.

I brought it to a bowl and put room temperature poached chicken, cooked rice noodles, bean sprouts, red onions, chopped coriander and a single red chile into each bowl and poured the piping hot liquid over it and served.

It was really nice but next time I will chop up the chile so that the spicy flavour spreads better.

These are the ingredients for soup for three (there was some broth left over):

300 calories per serving

I should have taken a photograph! I’ll make this again so I’ll take a picture next time.