BÚN THANG.(North Vietnamese three way rice noodle soup, with ham, egg and chicken))
The rice noodle used in this dish is called "Bún" which is about the size of Italian's thin noodle. It is made with rice flour and has an opaque white color when cooked. The texture of the cooked noodle would be soft, not al dente. A small size Somen Japanese noodle can be substituted.
It would be meaningless to try to translate the name of the dish, as a reason, I gave it an English description for the name. I called it "three ways noodle" because it has three main ingredients: fried eggs, chicken and Ham.
The dish is served in a bowl as a soup noodle and it looks rather complicated when the bowl is set down in front of you. However it is rather easy to make. The broth is a simple chicken broth, cooked with chicken parts, onion, garlic, fish sauce and a little black pepper, shiitetake mushrooms are optional. The toppings are included with thin plain egg omelet sliced into thin strips, cooked ham sliced into thin strips, shredded boiled chicken meats. To assemble the dish, you put some noodle, first into a bowl. Arrange egg, chicken, ham into three corners of the bowl, on top of the noodle, put shiitake mushrooms in between the meats and egg, then pour the broth on top. Garnish with some cilantro. There are two special condiments needed to make it authentic: Shrimp paste and an ether essence*. If you do not have the last two elements, you would not find the dish less desirable.
Note:* Ether essence is an extract from the gland of a field cricket. Now a day, it is mass produced in labs. The smell of the essence is very similar to Ether. Only a drop or two are needed for each use.
BÚN RIÊU CUA/TÔM (Crab/Shrimp Noodle Soup with Tomatoes)
Another "must have" traditional North Vietnamese noodle soup called "Bún Riêu". In order to be authentic, this soup has to be made with live crabs. I remember, as a kid in Vietnam,I watched the cook pounded the whole crab with shell and all in a mortar, then she drained the juice through a piece of cloth and made the broth with it. What made this soup distinctive from other soups was the floating islands, made with crab eggs, which had the texture of a mousse, crab mousse. It would be almost impractical to buy live crabs, if you lived in the heart of the US continent, like in the Midwest. As a reason, we had to improvise and used shrimps instead. Every time I cooked shrimps, I always saved the shells which became very handy for any seafood soup or sauce. You can make the base for this soup with chicken bones or chicken bouillon cubes and the shrimp shells. I also added garlic, onions, pepper and seasoned it with fish sauce. I used can diced tomatoes which I found them more flavorful than the fresh ones. Be careful with the seasoning if you used can tomatoes because they were pretty salty. I would cook the soup with the shrimp shells for about an hour then I fished out the shells. To make the floating islands, I just run some shelled shrimps with an egg in a food processor or blender to a paste consistency. You can adjust the thickness to your liking, by using more or less shrimps. Wait until just before serving, pour the shrimp/egg paste by table spoonfuls into the boiling broth. It only took few seconds for them to get cooked. Make sure to flip them over to make sure they got cooked on both sides. Serve the soup with thin rice noodle, use cilantro and green onions as garnishes.
I go ahead and post these two dishes. It would take me moths if I tried to include all the noodle dishes in one post. Promise, I will get to most of them sooner or later.
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