Phở Gà - Chicken Pho
I’m in the second installment of Rotisserie Chicken Week. The first part we shredded some prime pieces of meat for the Not-Thai Tangy Peanut Dressing and Chicken Lettuce Cups. I asked you to reserve the bones, excess skin, and cartilage. All of these things will make for a really silky and rich broth. The reason why I particularly like using a rotisserie chicken is because the pre roasted skin adds an extra body to the broth that working from a raw chicken doesn’t have… also because I’m lazy and don’t want to par boil bones as I would with traditional Pho. In traditional Pho, you would have to boil fresh bones, dump out the first broth, clean them, and skim off broken down protein. All of these are worth while for a beautiful aromatic beef broth, but for a quick weeknight cheat, a rotisserie chicken works just great without the all the work.
For the broth, it’s crucial to char your onion and ginger skin on. This releases the natural sugars of the onion and gives the broth that distinct golden color. I lightly toast my (whole) spices on the stove to open up the flavors and to release essential oils. This makes it so that the broth has alight aromatic flavor that distinctly makes it pho and not regular broth. Let the broth simmer just under boiling to prevent it from getting cloudy.
Resist the urge to sauce your pho, it is actually considered pho-pas to squeeze hoisin sauce and sriracha directing into your broth - especially after someone has spent hours simmering the broth for you. I like to keep my dipping sauces on the side and use it to dip my meats and toppings. This way you get maximum flavor of the spices in the broth and the contrast of flavors on the pieces of meat itself. The best broths should remain pure so save your sriracha for Maruchan.