HU TIEU MY THO KHO

Hi tieu is a noodle dish served with a pork based broth and garlic chives. But it is often different from city to city in Vietnam. The noodles and toppings can be really anything - from quail eggs to fried wontons. This version is from My Tho, which has more seafood and char siu.

As a young woman in Vietnam, my mom would cook meals and sell them in the market. This dish was NOT one of the dishes she made for the market. In her words, it was too expensive and time consuming to make for customers (You can see how much she would charge in our story ). But she would make it for me

We like to eat this dish “kho” meaning dry in Vietnamese. The soup is served on the side, and the noodles and toppings are eaten with a savoury sweet sauce instead. But you can eat the noodle in the broth only as well, which is hu tieu nuoc.

Mom’s Sauce Recipe for Hu Tieu Kho: Using leftover juices from the stir fried char siu, add into the same pot, and bring to a boil: 1/2 cup Water 1 tbsp Fish sauce 2 tbsp Oyster sauce 1 tbsp Soy sauce 1/2 tbsp Brown sugar 1/2 tbsp Knorr chicken powder (you can sub in chicken bouillon too) Fried garlic and onions Chilli to taste

Notes: - We were out of garlic chives in the store, so we just used bean sprouts and the inner leaves of a bunch of celery (which I thought was genius!). Blanche the bean sprouts, garlic chives and celery leaves in the boiling broth before adding them to your noodle bowl. This gives the toppings a softer crunch that we prefer. - For the char siu, we marinated pork butt steaks in Noh Char Siu mix. Char siu mixes and thicker rice noodles are in Aisle 3

Happy cooking!