I made this soup when I was feeling a little under the weather and wanted a rich chicken soup loaded with vegetables and noodles. I wasn't in the mood for my usual chicken & barley soup that I make in the winter so I looked at the ingredients I had in my garden. I went heavy on ginger and garlic, and decided to go a different route with the noodles. If you've never used sweet potato threads, or japchae, they are a great product. They hold their texture, have a great flavor, and are exceptionally easy to cook with.
As always I broke this recipe into a couple of stages and used some of the ingredients I had on hand from my garden. The first step was to make a flavorful broth from various ingredients to poach off a whole chicken. The reason for doing this was to fortify the base broth and gently cook the chicken to keep it moist. After the chicken was poached, I cooled it and pulled the meat. The poaching broth was used to blanche off the various vegetables that I wanted to keep crisper. Doing this kept the texture of the vegetables crunchy while still adding the flavor to the soup. I made this soup with carrots, squash, long beans, onions, mushrooms and water chestnuts as the veggies. You can swap any of those out based on your preference, add more veggies, like sweet potatoes for more body, if you chose.
Additionally I used soy sauce in this recipe. If you wanted to make it gluten free, it would be an easy swap to put tamari in it's place. This soup is more adjustable to your palate than a lot of the other soups I make. As long as your base broth is well seasoned you can tweak out the flavors any way you want. If you like a spicier soup, add more chilies or sriracha to it. More salt, toss some more soy in the soup. I also used rice wine vinegar to brighten and lighten the soup.
Some of the ingredients I used, shiso leaves, Vietnamese cilantro, etc. aren't quite as easy to gather as other ingredients. I recommend trying to find them, but at the same time you can omit them or swap the Vietnamese cilantro for regular.
Though this might seem a daunting soup because of the ingredients, it's really very simple. Make a broth, cook the chicken, cook the veggies, cook some noodles, add it all together for an amazing flavor.
Lastly, if you want to use the chicken skins feel free and turn them into crispy chicken skins and eat them seperately or garnish the soup with them.
Enjoy.
Ingredients
Chicken 1 whole, skinned
Soy Sauce 1 cup
Rice Wine Vinegar 1 cup
Hoisin 1/4 cup
Sriracha 2 T
Chicken Stock 2 qts
Water 2 qts
Vietnamese Coriander, whole 1 oz
Shiso leaves, rough chopped 1 oz
Lemon Grass, smashed and sliced 2 T
Thai Chili Peppers, sliced 6 ea
Garlic, sliced 1 head
Ginger, peeled and sliced 1/2 cup
Cremini Mushrooms, quartered 1 lb
Carrots, oblique cut 3 ea
Zucchini, cubed 2 ea
Long beans, sliced 1 lb
Water Chestnuts, julienned 12 oz
Scallions, sliced 1 cup
Salt to taste
Pepper to taste
Garnish
Scallions, Cracked Black Pepper, Crispy Chicken Skins (if you want)
Method of Procedure
Add your chicken stock, water, hoisin, mushroom stems, srirachi, rice wine vinegar, shiso leaves, cilantro, and soy sauce to a stock pot. Add your chicken and bring to a simmer. Simmer for about 1 hour until the chicken has cooked through and is able to be pulled.
While the chicken is cooking you can mise en place out your vegetables and process them how you want. Oblique cut the carrots, julienne your onions, quarter your shrooms, etc.
After the chicken is cooked remove it to cool and strain your poaching broth. Put the poaching broth on heat and bring the it up to a boil so you can blanch off the vegetables you want.
Rough chop your garlic and ginger*, and sliced your onions. Heat your soup pan and put in your garlic, ginger and onions. Saute on medium heat until they start to soften then add your lemongrass and pulled chicken. Let that cook for about 20 minutes then add your quartered mushrooms. Lower the heat and continue to cook while stirring so as not to burn for an additional 30 minutes.
While your soup base is being made blanch off your carrots, long beans, and squash separately and shock to brighten and slightly more tender.
Once you have finished your vegetables pour the poaching broth over your soup base and bring to a simmer.
Cut your long beans and mix them with the carrots and zucchini.
In a separate pot cook your sweet potato threads as per the package ingredients and shock. Once cooled do a rough chop so they aren't quite so long**.
Top finish your soup, add your sweet potato threads to your bowl, ladle in your base with broth, add your vegetables and simmer for about 10 minutes. Season to taste as per your liking and garnish with scallions and fresh cracked pepper.
*I kept them larger in this because I wanted a big flavor when eating the soup. If you want a little more subtle flavor, do a finer chop on them.
**Most of the time I have gotten japchae they are very long, it's possible you can omit this step if you source out a different noodle that is shorter.
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