Preparing Chicken Stock
5 chicken thighs, bone in & with skin
1 two-inch knob fresh ginger, peeled & halved lengthwise
5 whole cloves garlic, peeled
1 onion, peeled & quartered
Put above ingredients into a 6qt stock pot with cold water. Bring to a boil and lower heat to let stock gently simmer. Allow chicken to poach for about 25 minutes or until cooked through. Remove chicken and cool. Simmer the stock for 2 hours (ideally 6 hours). Strain stock through fine strainer and discard the solids.
Carefully take meat off the bones. The chicken meat can be shredded for use in the Chao and/or salad.
Preparing Rice
2 tbsp olive oil
3/4 cup jasmine rice
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
3 shallots, diced
1 tbsp fresh, minced ginger
Rinse and drain rice. Heat up a skillet with above set of ingredients and toss until rice is fragrant and fully coated with oil. Transfer rice to pot of simmering stock. Cook for another 30 minutes or until rice is tender.
4 stalks scallion, thinly sliced (white for soup, green for garnish)
2tbsp fish sauce
salt and pepper
Add above ingredients to Chao for taste.
Garnish with the below ingredients in a soup bowl
fresh cilantro, chopped
fresh thai basil, chopped
fresh mint, chopped
lime wedges
Salad
Combine the Garnish above with shredded cabbage, carrots and chicken. Use lightly, Fish sauce and lime for dressing.
In Vietnam rice congee is called cháo. It is sometimes cooked with pandan leaves or Asian green beans. In its simplest form (plain rice porridge) it is a food for times of famine and hardship, when rice is not abundant. Or, as is especially common among Buddhist monks, nuns and lay people, it can be a simple breakfast food eaten with pickled vegetables or fermented tofu. Despite its humble ubiquity among the poor, it is also popular as a main entre when cooked with a variety of meats. For example, Cháo gà is a variety of cháo cooked with chicken, garlic, and ginger. The rice porridge is cooked in the broth in which a whole chicken had been boiled, and once the chicken is cooked, the meat is sliced and layered on a bed of shredded uncooked cabbage, sliced onions and drizzled with a vinegar-based sauce, to be eaten as a side dish to the porridge. Other combinations include "Cháo vịt", (duck porridge) which is cooked in the same fashion as the chicken porridge, but with duck. "Cháo lòng heo" is made with "lòng heo" (a variety of pork entrails, including sliced cakes of congealed pork blood). It is also common to eat cháo during an illness, as it is believed the porridge is easy to digest and yet fortifying. For such purposes, the Cháo is sometimes cooked with roasted white rice, giving the porridge broth a more nuanced body and a subtle nutty flavor. Increasingly, especially in metropolitan areas, Cháo is proving to be a popular late-night street food eaten by urban youths after a long night of debauchery, inebriation, carousing, and orgiastic gyrations in dimly-lit night clubs and dance halls. On a related note, in some parts of Vietnam local customs call for making Cháo for death anniversary ceremonies, during which it is offered to fortify the spirits of the dead. (This tradition, however, is not widely practiced and seems to contradict the general principle of providing only the best food for one's ancestors).
