Instant Pot Chicken Phở

This is one of the best recipes I've made in a long time! It is quick and easy enough for a weeknight, and makes fantastic leftovers. 

Usually when I make or order phở it is made with a rich, spicy beef broth, but Phở Gà or Chicken Pho is also very common. The gingery broth is an amazing complement to the chicken.

Using the Instant Pot makes this dish so quick and easy.  I also love the way the pressure cooker makes such a lovely, clear broth.  The most time-consuming part was gathering the spices. 

This recipe is adapted from Epicurious. It will serve 6 as a meal.  Leftovers are even better the next day and the broth freezes beautifully. 

Ingredients:

2 tablespoons vegetable oil

2 medium onions, halved

2-inch piece of ginger, sliced, skin on

1 tablespoon coriander seeds

3 star anise

5 cloves

1 cinnamon stick 

3 cardamom pods, smashed

7 bone-in chicken thighs (about 2-3 pounds)

3 tablespoons fish sauce

1 tablespoon sugar

8 cups water

salt and pepper

rice stick noodles 

Toppings:

cilantro

red and/or green chilis, sliced

green onions, sliced

1 lime, sliced into wedges

Directions:

Push the "Saute" button on the Instant Pot. When the pot is hot, add the oil.  Place the onions, cut side down in the pot and add the ginger.  Cook without stirring for 4-5 minutes until charred. 

Add the corriander, cardamom, star anise, cinnamon and cloves.  Stir for 1 minute. Add the chicken, fish sauce, sugar and water.  Place the lid on the Instant Pot and lock it. 

Press the "Manual" button and set the time for 17 minutes at high pressure.  It will take about 30 minutes in total for the soup to come to pressure and cook.  Once done, let the pressure naturally release for 10 minutes, then turn the vent to release remaining pressure.  While pressure is releasing, cook the rice noodles according to package directions. 

Once the pressure is released, remove the chicken to a large bowl. Strain the broth into a large bowl or measuring cup, discarding solids. Skim fat from the top of the broth. Season the broth with salt and pepper to taste. 

Carefully remove the chicken from the bones and discard the skin and bones.  Shred the chicken.  

Place noodles and chicken into individual bowls.  Top with hot broth.  Each person can add their own herbs, chilis, lime and green onions to their bowl to their own taste. 

This soup tastes amazing.  You will love it! 

Larb! (Laotian Ground Chicken & Rice)

Larb doesn't sound like the most appetizing name for a dish, but this dish is truly fantastic. It's easy, cheap, filling, endlessly customizable and tastes delicious. 

Larb is a traditional dish of Laos, in Southeast Asia.  This version isn't traditional, but it has the qualities of Larb and is so simple. 

All you really need is ground chicken and rice, and any additional veggies you like. The simple sauce is sweet and tart, made with easy-to-find Asian ingredients.  It's awesome. 

Pickled onions add some crunchy tang to the ground meat and rice. 

You can serve the larb over rice or along with rice in boston lettuce leaves.

Either way this dish is a winner.  You can adjust the spice level with more or less chilis, add mushrooms and/or greens, or any other veggies you like.  My favourite addition is water chestnuts - I love the crunchy texture. 

Here's what you need...

Ingredients:
1/2 a medium red onion
2 tablespoons rice vinegar
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1 lb (around 500g) ground chicken (you can also use ground turkey, pork or beef)
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 small hot peppers, minced 
1 bunch green onions, sliced
4 tablespgroons soy sauce
1 teaspoon fish sauce
1 tablespoon brown sugar
1 tablespoon Sambal Oelek (chili garlic sauce)
Butter or Boston lettuce leaves for serving
Cilantro for serving
Lime wedges for serving

Optional additions:
Finely chopped mushrooms (cooked with the ground chicken)
Chopped greens such as bok choy, kale, or spinach (added with the sauce and wilted)
Chopped water chestnuts 

Directions: 
First steam some rice and make quick pickled onions by thinly slicing half a red onion and soaking it in rice vinegar while everything cooks.

In a large skillet, heat the oil and add the ground chicken, breaking it up and cooking until no longer pink.  Add the garlic chili peppers and white parts of the green onions and continue to cook until the liquid evaporates and the chicken starts to brown. 

Add the soy sauce, fish sauce, brown sugar and sambal oelek, stirring to combine.  Add the green parts of the green onions and any other additions (leafy greens, water chestnuts) and cook until liquid is mostly evaporated. 

Serve over rice, topped with pickled onions, cilantro, and a squeeze of lime.  Even better, serve it all wrapped in lettuce leaves. 

Enjoy! 

Dak Bokkeum (Chicken Stewed with Gochujang)

For a while now I've been reading about gochujang, a spicy, fermented Korean chili paste, and I wanted to try it but I haven't been able to find it in my grocery store.  

I finally came across some at my local Asian market and I'm so glad I did!  It really shines in this quick and easy stew.   

I found this in plastic tubs in the Japanese section of the store.  There's not really anything I'd recommend as a replacement so try to track it down if you want to make this spicy stew.

Tart of the Month - Butternut Squash with Sage, Honey & Chilis

You really can't go wrong with these puff pastry tarts.  They come together in minutes and bake quickly.  They work great as an appetizer, side dish or as a quick lunch.  I keep all-butter puff pastry in the freezer at all times now, and I can whip up a tart at a moment's notice.  

This recipe comes from Bon Appetit.  It's a has a few steps, but it's super easy to do.  Here's what you need:

Jamaican Patties

My Jamaican jerk turkey breast went over so well that I decided to try another Jamaican recipe.  These spicy beef patties are full of flavour.  They take a little time to come together, but they're not difficult at all.  

The dough comes together easily in a food processor and the spiced beef filling cooks quickly.  This recipe is adapted from Serious Eats.  

Here's what you need...

Tomatillo and Chicken Chilaquiles

We finally harvested the last of our miracle tomatillos from our garden.  Peppers do well in our garden in the fall, but these tomatillos have been the most successful thing we've ever grown.  

Chilaquiles (fun to say: chee-lah-KEE-less), like tortilla soup, is another great way to use up stale tortillas.  It's a dish that usually uses corn tortillas, but I used flour tortillas in this. 

Here's what you need:

Pork with Roasted Tomatillo Sauce

In the spring we planted four tomatillo plants in our garden.  Tomatillos are in the nightshade family, related to tomatoes.  I haven't had much luck with tomatoes in my garden, so I wasn't expecting much.  

But our tomatillo harvest has far exceeded expectations!  In August we harvested twelve pounds of tomatillos, and we have plenty more still growing.  

Southern USA Road Trip - Nashville Hot Chicken

We travelled 3,000 kilometers (1,800 miles) on our southern USA road trip, and we ate a lot of fantastic things.  

But, here it is, the most amazing, delicious food we tried in the South:  Nashville Hot Chicken.

Hot Chicken is spicy fried chicken and it's a Nashville local specialty.  It's said that it was invented when the original owner of Prince's Hot Chicken was out carousing and his wife decided to punish him by serving him chicken so spicy he'd regret his sins.  But he liked the chicken so much he decided to sell it.  

We didn't make it to Prince's but we tried Hot Chicken anywhere we could get it in Nashville and it was fantastic!

The chicken pieces are marinated in buttermilk and spices, then coated in a spicy coating, shallow-fried and then smothered in more spice paste.  It's then served on top of a piece of white bread with pickles on top.  It comes in mild, medium and hot plus extra hot versions (and extra mild too sometimes) and it is very, very spicy but also amazingly tender and juicy.  

Tortilla Soup

This recipe was originally intended to use up stale tortillas, but it is so good, I bought fresh corn tortillas just for this soup.  It's rich, spicy and flavourful, and so easy to pull together in just minutes.  

I used store-bought white corn tortillas for this but you can always make your own. 

Here's what you need:

Chicken Wing Cook-Off

Welcome to our first annual Super Bowl Chicken Wing Cook-Off!

We love chicken wings, but I'm not a big fan of deep frying in the house.  So Matt and I decided to try two methods of cooking wings that don't require frying but still make a crispy, tasty treat.  

I decided to make classic Buffalo wings, baked in the oven.  Matt tried dry-rubbed wings smoked on the grill.  Both turned out spicy and delicious.  

Chicken & Waffles

The first time I tried chicken and waffles was in Las Vegas and I fell in love.   It seems like an odd combination, but crispy, salty fried chicken with sweet waffles & syrup is a match made in heaven.  

This recipe from Chatelaine magazine lightens the dish up considerably by baking cornflake-crusted chicken breasts and adding corn flavour to the waffles.  I made a few tweaks to the recipe to add even more flavour, but it was a huge success and we'll be having this again.

Here's what you need:

Beef Barbacoa Tacos

One of the best techniques I discovered this year is creating a rich, flavourful sauce from dried chilis.  It works beautifully with pork, chicken, and now here's a beef recipe that tastes incredible.  

The original recipe comes from Serious Eats.  I made a few adjustments based on the chilis and meat I had available.  Here's what you need:

Peach Salsa with Grilled Pork Chops

Peaches are still very much in season around here.  Last week we ate two full baskets between the two of us!  This tasty, easy peach salsa used up four of them.  It's great with pork and would be nice with chicken too.

Here's what you need:

4 ripe peaches
1 small red onion
2 jalapeño peppers
juice of one lime
cilantro or parsley

Spanish Sausage Hash with Potatoes & Corn

We found some more delicious sausage at The Hungary Butcher at Ogilvies Market.  This time we chose the spicy Spanish sausage.  I thought it would be nice with some crispy potatoes.  I also had some fresh corn from the market so I threw that in too.  It tasted incredible and we'll definitely have it again.  

I made this one up myself.  This will make enough for 4.  Here's what you need:

Jerk Chicken Drumsticks

Jerk is a Jamaican style of cooking where meat is marinated overnight in a spicy rub or paste then grilled over high heat.  You can buy any number of prepared Jerk seasonings and marinades in grocery stores, but making your own is very easy and definitely worth the effort. 

The two most important ingredients in jerk seasoning are allspice and Scotch bonnet peppers.  This recipe is inspired by Clean Eating magazine.  It calls for many ingredients, but it's relatively easy to prepare.  Here's what you need:  

Green Chili Mac & Cheese

This was a quick and easy dinner. Not the healthiest thing I’ve ever made but it sure was tasty!

Matt is not the world’s biggest fan of homemade macaroni and cheese. I can see his point; it can be clumpy, stringy and dry when baked. This is the first time I’ve tried making it with evaporated milk and it was super creamy and delicious. Definitely a winner. 

Adapted from a recipe on Serious Eats, you can add/subtract just about anything to this to suit your tastes. The original recipe called for chicken but I made it without and added some Rotel (diced, spiced tomatoes) and corn. 
Here’s what you need:

Boneless Chicken Thighs in Mustard Orange Sauce

When it's not grilling season I'm sometimes stumped about what to do with boneless chicken thighs.  This easy recipe makes a very delicious change of pace.

Here's what you need for this recipe inspired by Epicurious:  

4 boneless, skinless chicken thighs
1 tablespoon olive oil
3/4 cup orange juice
3/4 cup chicken stock
1/4 cup grainy dijon mustard
1 tablespoon honey
1 teaspoon hot pepper sauce

Lamb Vindaloo

We love curries. The spicy richness is so warming in the depths of winter and it fills the house with aroma for days.  But they're not always the healthiest choices calling for fattier cuts of meat, oil or ghee and sometimes yogurt or coconut milk.  Plus there's the rice and naan we like to have on the side.  This is a slightly slimmed-down version of lamb vindaloo inspired by Clean Eating magazine.  

Some people think "curry" is the name of a spice in their spice rack but it's actually any of a number of dishes made with a blend of spices.  Here's a great article about the history of curries.  I learned while making this dish that vindaloo actually means wine & garlic in Portuguese, a leftover from their influence in India. Most versions of vindaloo will have plenty of garlic and vinegar.  I love learning tidbits like this about world cuisine, especially these tales of long ago food fusion, like the French influence in Vietnamese food.  

This version is kind of spicy. I was wishing for some raita to cool things down, but I'm a wimp so most people should be able to handle it.  Here's what you need for this lamb vindaloo:

• 1.5 lbs boneless lamb shoulder 
• 6 garlic cloves
• 2 hot chili peppers
• 1 1-inch piece of ginger
• 2 teaspoons ground coriander
• 2 teaspoons ground cumin
• 1 teaspoon ground cardamom
• 1 teaspoon ground turmeric
• 3/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
• 1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper (depending on how hot you like it)
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
• 1 tablespoon grapeseed oil or other cooking oil
• 1 tablespoon mustard seeds
• 1 onion, sliced
• 2 cups beef broth (I made a quick stock from an onion, carrot, celery, bay leaf, peppercorns and a meaty beef bone I'd stored in the freezer, but store-bought is fine)
• 1 lb white potatoes
• Fresh cilantro (optional)