Soup

Loaded with asparagus and crab, this soup is elegant looking and delicately flavored. Vietnamese consider it special-occasion fare because it features asparagus, a pricey ingredient introduced by the French as an imported canned good. In Vietnamese, asparagus is mang tay, literally “French bamboo,” an apt name as both asparagus and bamboo shoots grow quickly. Resourceful Viet cooks often maximize the asparagus flavor by adding the spears and their canning liquid to the soup. But the taste is nonetheless rather flat, and canned asparagus is mushy. To achieve a strong asparagus flavor, I use fresh asparagus to prepare the soup. Asparagus declines in sweetness as soon as it is harvested, so choose only the freshest. Spring is asparagus season, and at farmers’ markets the spears are sold within twenty-four hours of being cut. To keep them fresh, stand them in a tall container filled with about an inch of water. (If the ends look dry, trim them first.) Refrigerate the container; there is no need to cover it with plastic.

When preparing this Chinese classic, Vietnamese cooks, like their northern neighbors, often rely on canned creamed corn, once considered an exotic foreign import in Asia. The velvety sweet-savory result fuses East and West. Here in the States, fresh corn is plentiful, and making this soup with kernels cut from the cob yields bright flavors that aren’t cloying. Neither cornstarch nor egg is needed to create a creamy texture. The natural starch in the corn provides it. Some cooks add a variety of embellishments to the soup, but I prefer to keep it simple, using only sliced shiitake mushrooms for their flavor, texture, and visual appeal. Make sure you use the sweetest corn possible, whether from your local market or farm stand, fresh or frozen.

An elegant preparation of northern Vietnam, this soup is special-occasion fare. Rather than simmering the rice until it disintegrates into a silky creaminess, the grains are cooked until their ends “bloom” into flowerlike petals, an effect achieved by parboiling the rice and then simmering it for a shorter time than for standard cháo. Tapioca pearls thicken the soup and lend an interesting shimmer, and the halved shrimp turn into pink corkscrews as they cook, adding a final flourish to the presentation.

Here is a soup that my father taught me. In a ceviche-like approach, raw fish is marinated with onion, ginger, and cilantro. The semicooked mixture is then placed in the bottom of soup bowls, and the final cooking is done by the hot rice soup. When brought to the table, the seemingly plain white soup conceals a pleasant surprise of fish. Pair it with one of the salads in Chapter 1 for a Vietnamese soup-and-salad meal.

Viet cooks prepare this chao in several ways, and I prefer the easy northern approach of sauteing seasoned chicken and adding it to the hot soup. Traditionally, a chicken would be boned, its carcass cooked with the rice to make the soup, and the boneless meat sauteed and added later on. This old-fashioned approach saves fuel costs and time, but the residue from the bones ends up suspended in the soup. I prefer to use stock, either homemade or a blend of purchased broth and water. The final sprinkle of chopped Vietnamese coriander (rau ram) and sliced scallion adds contrasting color and flavor.

This rice soup is the closing dish for the popular Vietnamese seven-course beef feast, where its primary role is to settle the stomach after six indulgent courses. At that point, I find it hard to enjoy the soup because I’m usually stuffed. But I regularly make this soup for lunch. It is a good way to get sustenance without feeling weighed down.

Warm, creamy, and comforting, chao is a staple of the Viet diet. It is eaten at all times of day, and is the magical antidote for whatever ails you—a stomachache, a cold, a hangover. With less than a cup of rice, you can create a pot of soup that will feed people in biblical proportions because it keeps thickening as it cooks and sits, requiring ever more liquid to thin it down. At its most basic, chao is rice simmered in liquid—water, homemade stock, or canned broth (the latter two are best)—until all its starch has been released. The thick finished soup is a versatile canvas. For a flavorful savory addition, eat it with Salted Preserved Eggs (page 101) or a sprinkle of Cotton Pork shreds (page 134). For richness, put a raw egg into the bowl before ladling in the hot soup. For a simple seafood soup, drop in raw peeled shrimp just before serving. Or, make one of the four chao recipes that follow.

Rich with contrasts, this soup is easy to like. The tamarind and pineapple provide a sweet-and-sour edge, while the okra, tomato, and bean sprouts offer spongy, soft, and crunchy textures. The catfish and cumin ground the dish with their pungent, earthy qualities. If rice paddy herb (rau om) is available, use it for a citrusy accent. Sour fish soups are eaten throughout Southeast Asia. The Viet version often includes sliced taro stems (bac ha), a flavorless ingredient known for its ability to absorb other flavors. I generally omit the stems because they don’t contribute much to the soup, and instead increase the amount of okra, which is added at the end. If you can’t find fresh okra, use frozen whole okra, thawing it and slicing it before you add it to the pan. When fresh or frozen pineapple isn’t around, don’t resort to canned. It is not the same. The soup will be a bit tangier but equally sensational without the pineapple.

When riêu is brought to the table, expect a full-bodied soup laced with rich-tasting seafood and tangy tomato. Viet cooks prepare a fish riêu like this one as an everyday canh, or the more extravagant crab and shrimp riêu noodle soup (page 215) for a special occasion. Carp is the fish typically used in this soup, but since it is not commonly available at regular markets, my family switched to salmon, which has the fattiness to pair perfectly with the tomato, dill, and garlic of a classic riêu. We used salmon steaks for years because the bones and skin enriched the broth. But steaks can be difficult to handle during cooking and later on in the bowl, so I now use salmon fillet. In the classic northern Vietnamese tradition, the fish is seared first to firm its flesh. The searing not only helps the fish hold its shape, but also provides a nice textural contrast in the finished soup.

This simple soup embodies the Vietnamese canh tradition. The peppery qualities of Vietnamese coriander (rau ram), one of the cuisine’s most popular herbs, are fully displayed, with its headiness standing up well to the beef. Traditionally, hand-minced beef was used, but ground beef is both convenient and fully acceptable. For the best beef flavor, use the tastiest ground beef available, such as what you would select for a good hamburger. Natural, organic, or grass-fed beef is great. Also, remember that ground beef with a little fat, typically chuck, will add richness to the broth.

My Dad and I used to catch small perch at the local harbor for this soup. Amid the sailboats and cabin cruisers, we would lower our poles, the lines baited with thawed frozen peas, to catch the three- to four-inch-long fish, the American equivalent of Vietnamese ca ro. We would bring home about a dozen fish, and my mom would gut them for this classic Viet combination of sweet fish, sharp mustard greens, and ginger. One day, Mom protested that cleaning the fish took too much time, so we stopped catching them, and the soup didn’t grace our table for years. On a trip to Vietnam, I saw a fishmonger at Ben Thanh market in Saigon cleaning ca ro, which reminded me of how good this soup is. Back home, I decided to use whole tilapia, which is sometimes identified as ca ro in Viet markets. It worked just like traditional ca ro in this soup, but its larger size made it much easier to prep and cook. Now, this brightly flavored soup is back on my table as an ideal balance for bold, rich foods like Grilled Lemongrass Pork Riblets (page 145). Whole tilapia is sold at Asian and Latin markets.

To put a tasty canh on the table nightly requires that you make the most of staple ingredients like gio, a raw meat paste used extensively in the Viet kitchen. In fact, I freeze small amounts of this meat paste for whipping up classics like this fragrant soup laden with dumplings made from it. As the dumplings poach, they flavor the broth. Edible chrysanthemum leaves (cai cuc) add their deep green color and musty floral perfume. Called tong ho in Cantonese and shungiku in Japanese, the greens are sold at Asian markets and are easy to grow, too. Watercress may be substituted.

Wonton noodle soups are often on the menus of Vietnamese noodle shops, but they are seldom as nuanced as those prepared by Chinese cooks. Years ago, while living in Southern California, I wanted to find out the Chinese secret to good wonton noodle soup, so I asked my friend Victor Fong. Born and raised in Chinatown, Los Angeles, he took me to the local Mayflower Restaurant, a tiny locals-only establishment on a side street. The noodles had a perfect chewy-tender texture, the crinkly wontons encased a toothsome pork and shrimp filling, and the golden broth was complex and not darkened by too much soy sauce. The owners and their chef turned out to be ethnic Chinese from Vietnam, and though friendly, there were coy about what went into their noodle soup. After eating many bowls at Mayflower and some trial and error at home, I came up with my own version of this noodle soup classic.

One way to imbue canh with flavor is to include lots of vegetables. This recipe, along with Opo Squash Soup (page 60) and Chicken Dumpling and Chrysanthemum Leaf Soup (page 61), amply illustrates this technique. Here, the broth is further enriched with the addition of dried shrimp, which contribute both brininess and color. When I want a more special presentation, I cut the shrimp in half horizontally to yield two symmetrical halves. Once in the hot soup, the halves curl into beautiful spirals. This light soup is a great addition to nearly any Viet meal.

Opo squash, a popular light green–skinned Asian gourd, shows off its delicate sweetness in this quick soup, which blends the opo with chicken or pork to yield a rich flavor that tastes like the broth simmered for hours. Look for opo squash at Asian or farmers’ markets, selecting specimens that are blemish free and feel heavy for their size. When you gently squeeze the squash, it shouldn’t yield to its spongy core, a sign of overmaturity. If an opo squash is unavailable, zucchini may be substituted. The flavor will be milder but still tasty.

This soup borrows heavily from Vietnam’s northern neighbor. Mì vit tiem is one of my mom’s favorites, and she is partial to a version made by her friend Mrs. Tan, who, along with her husband, once owned a Chinese barbecue restaurant in San Diego. Unlike pho, which most Viet home cooks know how to make, mì vit tiem is usually left to the pros. The trick is cooking the duck legs until tender (but not mushy), mahogany brown, and deeply seasoned. The traditional approach is to marinate them, flash fry them for color, and then simmer them in the broth. Some cooks even refry the legs right before serving. When my mom finally asked Mrs. Tan for her secret, she divulged that she roasted and then steamed the duck legs, instead of frying and simmering them. Her method evenly colors the duck, seals in the seasonings, preserves the integrity of the meat, and easily removes much of the fat. I developed this recipe using Mrs. Tan’s method. Traditionally, the duck leg is served whole on the side for diners to attack with chopsticks and spoons. Since that is hard to do, even for a native chopstick user like me, I slice the meat and serve it in the bowl.

Roughly translated as “useful water”, this versatile broth serves as the basis for many of my Chinese-style noodle soups, including duck soup (page 220) and wonton soup (page 222). While you can use all pork bones, I prefer to combine pork and chicken for a more delicate flavor.

Bún thang is one of the most complex expressions of Vietnamese culinary prowess. Requiring many ingredients and much time, this popular Hanoi soup is traditionally reserved for special events and holidays such as Tet. The golden broth contains chicken, pork, and dried squid or shrimp. The toppings may include those items, too, in addition to egg shreds, gio lua (sausage), and salted duck egg yolk. At the table, shrimp sauce gives the broth extra depth, and if it is affordable, male belostomatid beetle extract (ca cuong) is added from the tip of a toothpick, imparting a mesmerizing fragrance. Aficionados of the soup can be particular. In a 1996 essay, food writer Bang Son asserts that its refinement is not for merely appeasing hunger, insisting that it be served in fine china on a joyous occasion to cherished loved ones. While my mom isn’t that fanatical, she is a stickler for certain traditional notions, such as serving bún thang piping hot. In my kitchen, I omit the beetle juice because the chemical version sold in the United States overwhelms the delicate flavors of the soup. Also, though bún thang is often savored in smallish bowls as part of a multicourse meal, I prefer to serve it in big ones.

This heady combination of seafood and tomato comes from the north, where it is traditionally made from small rice-field crabs called cua đong. To extract enough flavor, cooks use many crabs, removing their back shells and pounding their bodies. The crushed crab is combined with water, carefully filtered, and finally mixed with fermented shrimp sauce (mam tom) to create a broth base. When heated, the crab solids rise to the top, forming a rich, seafood-laden floater that is the signature of the soup. Sections of the floater are carefully spooned atop round rice noodles (bun) before the broth is ladled into each bowl. A garnish plate of raw vegetables, limes, and fresh herbs accompanies the soup. When I was a child, our family re-created this soup by using the tiny rock crabs foraged among the rocks at the local harbor. Nowadays, I make this more convenient and equally tasty version. Unlike many Vietnamese Americans (including my mom), I don’t use canned bún riêu cua soup base. Rather, I start with a live Dungeness crab and mix its meat and tomalley with ground shrimp and egg for the floater. Since Dungeness crab season (November through May) doesn’t coincide with tomato season, I use premium canned tomatoes instead of fresh ones. If you are substituting other types of crab, you will need enough to yield 6 ounces of meat.

Among Vietnamese noodle soups, bun bo Hue is second only to pho in popularity. But while pho is delicate and nuanced, bun bo is earthy and spicy, characteristic of central Viet cooking and of the elegant yet rustic table of Hue, the former imperial capital. And although its name suggests an all-beef affair, the soup actually combines beef and pork. To make great bun bo Hue, I heed the advice of our family friend Mrs. Nha, a Hue native who insists that the broth be made with beef bones, not the pork bones widely used today. From my mom, I learned to sauté the onion and boneless meat for a deeply flavored broth. On my own, I discovered that simmering the annatto in the broth yields a nice rich color. (Most cooks fry the seeds in oil to release their color and then add the oil to the finished broth.) Shop for the various meats you need at a Viet or Chinese market, where you will find beef shank (shin) in long pieces, boneless pork leg with a layer of fat and skin, and slices of pork hock, often prepackaged in Styrofoam trays.