Vietnamese Chicken Rice Soup/Porridge Recipe (Chao Ga)

Rice is the main staple of Asian diets and commonly served as steamed rice, fried rice, rice cake, or even as desserts such as sticky rice and mango. Another form of popular rice dish in Asia is rice soup or congee or rice porridge. Each region have specialty rice soup such as bubur (Indonesian and Malay) or chao in Vietnam.

Basically chao is Vietnamese style of congee or porridge or rice soup which is rice simmered and cooked in a large quantity of water to create creamy soup. This chao commonly is eaten at breakfast but it can be eaten at all times of the day. Loaded with ginger and chicken or other meat stock this comforting food also has medicinal benefits for comforting flu, cold and stomachache or other ailment.

Here is my simple Vietnamese chicken rice soup (chao ga) recipe. I prefer to saute the rice and onion before simmering it into chicken stock. This method will yielding fragrant aromatic rice soup. Whenever my kid is sick, I made a big batch of chicken rice soup as my mother did in the past. It is such joy, pleasure and comforting. Fixing chao ga is not difficult. All you need is some rice, good chicken stock and ginger. Even you can make a short cut if you have chicken stock and steamed rice on hands. Ready to eat steamed rice will speedy the process of making creamy and thick rice soups. Serve it with your favorite meats and or herbs and vegetables. Enjoy.

Ingredients:

6-7 cups water

1 piece of ginger (about 1 inch)

1/2 cup rice

1/2 chicken

2 stalk scallion, knotted

1 tbsp fish sauce

1 onion, coarsely chopped

1 tbsp oil

Garnish:

scallions, finely chopped

coriander leaves or cilantro

fish sauce

1. Put rice in a big saucepan and add water to cover. Stir the rice gently with hands. Pour the white milky water out. Repeat this process several times but without stirring it or until the water is clear. Drain the rice and set aside
2. In a frying pan , heat 1 tbsp oil and stir fry onion about 2 minutes or until fragrant. Then add rice and stir it about 1 minutes or until rice turns white. Set aside.
3. In a pot, add water, chicken, ginger and scallion. Bring it to boil over high heat then lower the heat to simmer. Skim off some foam and scum that rises to the surface. Simmer about 20 minutes or until the chicken is cooked through. Remove chicken from the pot and rain it well.
4. Add rice and onion mixture into the pot. Let it simmer about 1 hour or until the rice releasing their starch and the soup is thicken and creamy. At this point, the soup consistency should be thick like porridge or congee. There should be a very little liquid in it.
5. Skin and debone chicken if you are using bone-in chicken. Then shred it into bite pieces. Return it into the soup pot. Add fish sauce. Stir it well. Adjust the fish sauce or salt as your liking. Let the soup simmer about 3 minute then turn off the heat. Discard the ginger and scallions if you can leave it if you like.
6. Serve in individual serving bowls. Garnish it with scallions and cilantro. Do not forget your favorite dipping sauce. Enjoy.