A fresh light Vietnamese chicken soup with a wonderful balance of sweet, salty and sour, topped with lots of fresh herbs and chilli.

Variation – omit the chicken meat and increase the number of frozen dumplings.

For gluten free, make sure that the dumplings don’t contain gluten, otherwise omit and increase the amount of chicken meat.

Fried Tofu and Fish Tofu can be frozen – just take out what’s needed at the time, as it can be cut frozen or slightly thawed.

30 mins when using pre-made chicken stock
Serves 2 – requires two large soup bowls

1.25 ltr Chicken stock – or reserved from Hainanese Chicken (coming soon)
2 star anise
1 cassia bark, or cinnamon stick
2 cloves
3 or 4 pieces of deep fried tofu – sliced in half diagonally, substitute with fresh medium tofu if prefered
2 pieces of fish tofu sliced thinly, optional (usually comes in 1 inch cubes)
1-2 tbsp fish sauce
1 tsp chilli oil, optional
1-2 tbsp brown sugar (we won’t use palm sugar)
4 or 5 bite size frozen dumplings, optional – keep in the freezer until ready to add
1 cup cooked shredded chicken – preferably thigh meat – left over from Hainanese Chicken (coming soon) or other cooked chicken (ie: rotiserie chicken, roast chicken, etc)
125g dry rice stick noodle
2 handfuls bean sprouts
1 pak choy sliced, or bok choy
1 spring onion sliced
1 red chilli sliced
1/2 lime – cut in two
1 bunch coriander roughly chopped
1 handful of mint leaves roughly chopped

Add the stock (either frozen or defrosted) to a pot over a medium heat. Stock can be topped up with water to make up 1.25 ltr if required.

Add the star anise, cassia bark and cloves. Slowly bring the stock up to a light simmer, then turn the heat down and allow the spices to infuse for 10 minutes.

Meanwhile, bring another pot of water up to boil for the noodles.

Add the fish sauce, chilli oil and brown sugar to the stock and stir until the sugar dissolves.

Remove the star anise, cassia bark and cloves. Bring the soup back up to the boil and add the deep fried tofu, fish tofu and frozen dumplings.

Add the noodles to the boiling water and cook as per packaging – the noodles should be cooked through, but still firm so that they don’t fall apart. Once cooked, strain and rinse quickly with cold water to stop the cooking process, but not enough to cool them completely.

Divide the noodles into the soup bowls. Add the pak choy on one side, add the shredded chicken beside the pak choy.

Once the dumplings are cooked (as per packaging), remove the soup from the heat and serve immediately. Use a ladle to divide the dumplings, fried tofu and fish tofu – try to separate each around the bowl on top of the noodles, then ladle the soup broth into the bowls.

Garnish with bean sprouts, spring onion, red chilli, wedge of lime, coriander and mint.