Vietnamese-Inspired Chicken and Rice Soup
By: Cynthia Furey
Published: Friday, March 5, 2010 - 9:39am

Ingredients




4 pounds chicken bones (carcasses, or necks, backs, wings, etc.)
2 inches medium onions, cut  half
4 inches piece of ginger
2 carrots, peeled
2 stalks celery
3 star anise
1 bay leaf
2 teaspoons black peppercorns
4 whole cloves
2 cinnamon sticks
4 garlic cloves, peeled
6 quarts water
Salt and pepper, to taste

Lime juice, to taste

2 cups wild rice
Shredded chicken from carcass, or 2 cooked and shredded chicken breasts

Preparation

1 Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Place chicken bones in a roasting pan. When oven comes to temperature, roast bones for 1 hour, or until thoroughly browned. Remove from pan and place in a 10-12 quart stock pot. 2 Place onion halves (peels removed) over the open flame of a gas burner. Use tongs to turn onions when needed. When onions are blackened, place in stock pot. Repeat method with ginger, but cut ginger into 1-inch pieces before placing in pot. Add carrots and celery to pot. 3 Make a sachet of spices: Pile star anise, bay leaf, peppercorns, cloves and garlic in a cheesecloth, and tie with kitchen string to make a little pouch. Add pouch to pot, as well as cinnamon sticks. 4 Fill pot with 6 quarts of cold water, making sure to cover all ingredients (add more if you need to). Bring pot to a boil and immediately turn heat down to medium-low. Let the pot simmer with the lid slightly ajar for 4 hours. Refrain from stirring here, so that you’ll end up with a clear broth. 5 Remove all bones, veggies and spices from pot. Turn heat up to medium-high, and reduce to about half of its current amount. Taste, and add salt if needed. When broth is full-bodied and flavorful (and this depends on personal preference), remove from heat and cool. Add a healthy sprinkle of lime juice, if desired. 6 When ready to serve soup, portion cooked rice into 6 to 8 servings. Pack each serving into a ramekin to mold it into a circular shape. Overturn the ramekin onto a shallow bowl. Arrange the shredded chicken and parsley over rice. Pour hot broth over rice tableside and eat up.

About


For the stock, you’ll start with a huge pot and 6 quarts of water, but you’ll reduce the liquid to less than half of that to concentrate the broth’s flavors. You may only need a smidge of salt at the end, but sometimes I find that I don’t need any at all. Finish with some lime juice to perk it up a bit.