Soto Ayam: Indonesian Chicken Noodle Soup

The first time I went to the Netherlands, back in 2003, I fell in love with Indonesian food. When I worked for a Dutch company, I made sure to eat Indonesian food every time I visited headquarters, south of Amsterdam. Everywhere you turn, there’s an Indonesian restaurant.

Indonesian food seems to be to the Dutch what Chinese food is to Americans (except for the history of colonization). The best thing about Indonesian food in the Netherlands is Rijsttafel–“rice table”. Its the best way for the novice (me) to sample everything that Indonesian cuisine has to offer. You get a little bit of everything in smaller portions: egg rolls, chicken noodle soup (soto ayam), sates, curries, salads…

Seared Ahi Tuna w/Cold Soba

Summer doesn’t hit San Francisco until September and October. Lately, we’ve had some really hot (for us) days where I don’t want to do much cooking. This is the perfect meal for one of those days. One bundle of soba noodles is plenty for the two of us, boiled according to package directions and rinsed under hot water. For the tuna, I just seasoned with salt and pepper and seared both sides in a cast iron skillet.

In a large bowl, I put some arugula at the bottom of the bowl and a portion of cold soba noodles on top. I sliced up the tuna and gave it a dab of wasabi. Finally, I poured over some soba noodle soup base and we had dinner!

Bun Thit Nuong (Vietnamese grilled pork over rice noodles)

Growing up, my mom often made this for us, especially on hot days. Summer generally doesn’t arrive in San Francisco until September, when I get home from work and don’t want to turn on the oven.

I often order these bowls when eating at Vietnamese restaurants and thought it would be a pain to put together at home. Turns out it really isn’t that hard, especially when you already have the marinated meat in the freezer (left over from an undocumented dinner party several months ago), the peanuts and noodles in the pantry, and pickled veggies in the fridge. You can easily put together the nuoc mam pha earlier in the week so that when you get home, all you have to do is boil the noodles, grill the meat and put everything together.

Bun Thang (kinda)

My family is from a rural, Catholic enclave in northern Vietnam (they fled south to Saigon in 1954) so many of the foods I grew up eating are from that region. My accent is northern and the terms I use are generally northern (e.g., gio vs. cha lua for steamed pork cake). I thought the food I ate growing up was typical Vietnamese fare until I asked my mom why I could never find any of the dishes I was craving at Vietnamese restaurants. Most Vietnamese in the U.S. seem to be from the South so the food from that region is better represented.

Bun thang is one of the northern dishes I grew up eating and rarely find in restaurants. In fact, the only place I know of in San Francisco that serves bun thang is Turtle Tower. Their version is pretty good (had it for the first time last week) but it is fairly simple to make if you have the right ingredients. I call mine kinda bun thang because I didn’t have all the right ingredients but did the best I could with the ingredients I had on hand. For a traditional bun thang recipe, visit The Ravenous Couple.

Last week, we were both feeling a little under the weather, it was chilly out and I had enough ingredients to make a recognizable bastardization of bun thang. I had boiled chicken, chicken broth and cilantro chiffonade left over from a batch of khao man gai, Three Ladies brand rice stick noodles and eggs.

First, the eggs. Growing up, I saw my mom do this all the time but had never tried it myself. I scrambled 3 eggs with a couple slugs of nuoc mam and fried a thin layer in a small non-stick pan. I flipped it when it looked ready. Next time, I will try to make it a little thinner.

my omelet could have been thinner

thinly slicing the omelet

one egg per person is probably a good guesstimation

The broth normally has some mam tom in it, but I didn’t have any at the time (now I do). Instead, I used some Thai shrimp paste (it didn’t dissolve very well) and dressed it up with a few more glugs of nuoc mam. Assemble pre-boiled noodles and everything else in a soup bowl, pour hot broth over it and you’ve got dinner!

A more authentic version would have had  gio / cha lua (Vietnamese steamed pork cake), some lime and rau ram (Vietnamese coriander)…but it was good enough for me. I figured it out and don’t have to ask my dad to make the same dishes over and over when I see him. My mom used to get a little annoyed when I requested the same 2-3 simple dishes from her vast repertoire and my dad is probably no different.

Bun Rieu (Crab, Shrimp & Tomato Soup)

My family shows affection through food. We aren’t a chatty family (Asians!) so we show our love more through actions than words.

On the 2nd anniversary of my mom’s passing, my cousin brought me a big bowl of gia cay (not pictured, but a rare dish and a story for another day) and a large vat of  bun rieu that she’d made with her mom. Bun rieu is one of my favorite Vietnamese noodle soups. I love the varied ingredients (shrimp, egg, ground pork, dried shrimp, crab, fried tofu, steamed pork cake…sometimes cubes of pork blood…or in my family’s case, quail eggs). Everyone makes it a little differently but it is almost always great…

My mom made this for us often and once even taught me to make bun rieu. Unfortunately, I never wrote it down and have never made it on my own…I was just using cooking as an excuse for us to spend time together.

In 2004, we lost my grandpa, grandma, aunt and uncle. It was an especially tough year for my mom; she had spent the last several years caring for my grandma who was bedridden after a stroke, then my grandpa as he slowly got the scrambles and finally my aunt, who had advanced epithelial cancer. It was a lot of work that took almost all of her time and energy (as well as the rest of my extended family’s). At the end of it all, she was lost. She had forgotten her previous life. So I went home and asked her to show me how to make bun rieu.

As we cooked, we remembered everything she did before all the illness. Besides driving my brother and I to school, games and lessons, she also volunteered as a translator for the Red Cross at Stanford Children’s Hospital. She worked at the Kiwanis’ Farmers Markets on the weekend. She visited with friends and family in the South Bay. She rarely did anything for herself but gave greatly to others. My brother and I were both out of the house so I encouraged her to find somewhere new to give her time. The following week, we volunteered at St. Anthony Padua’s Dining Room, where she could combine her love for feeding others with her need to serve. She volunteered there weekly (sometimes more often) until just a few weeks before she died. After she died, my dad took her place.

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