It’s officially “soup season” and this soup combines two of my favorite things:
Dumplings and Noodles.
Mì Hoành Thánh Vịt Quay is a Vietnamese soup with egg noodles, wonton shrimp and pork dumplings with bok choy topped with roasted duck. It’s a Vietnamese dish long ago influenced by the Chinese. This dish is completely different from that Wonton Soup you find at chinese take-out. Please, do not confuse the two.
My strongest memory of this dish, one I will always correlate with Mì Hoành Thánh is from 2009. We arrived into Saigon, Vietnam from a late, long flight and slurped up a bowl of this soup at 3:00 am. It was the perfect remedy for jet lag and fatigue.
As always, this recipe is my own rendition of a traditional dish without the MSG, the pre-packaged powders and as least sugar (or none in most cases) as possible. It may taste a little different than what the restaurants and Grandma may make, but kitchen experiments in Mama Melly’s Messhall are always ground-breaking!
Let’s start the broth:
Add 1 tbsp Red Boat fish sauce. Stir and adjust to taste. Broth is ready!
Time for the Wontons:
Bok Choy:
Egg noodles:
Plating:
Freeze all the leftover dumplings on the baking sheet spaced apart with none of the dumplings touching. After about an hour, remove and place into containers. As long as they are frozen spaced apart first, they won’t clump together. The next time you are ready to eat, just drop the frozen dumpling babies straight into the boiling water and add 2 minutes to your cook time.
I hope you end up having a second bowl at dinner, like my husband did. He liked it so much he started speaking Vietnamese! (He’s not Vietnamese).
Bon Appetit,
Mel
All photos by Melllypoo via iPhone 6.
- 1 lb Pork neck bones
- 1 inch fresh ginger, peeled, sliced large
- 1 white daikon radish, peeled, sliced in large 2 inch portions
- 1 carrot, peeled, sliced into small 1 inch portions
- 1 tbsp fish sauce
- 1 tbsp salt
- 1 tsp sugar
- 1 package of square Wonton Wrappers
- 2 eggs (1 full egg, 1 separate egg white)
- 1 lb small shrimp with shell and tail, saving the shells for the broth then deveining and chopping into small half inch portions
- 1 lb ground pork
- 1 can of water chestnuts, about 20 chestnuts total, minced
- 1 tbsp minced fresh ginger
- 6 green onions
- 1 tbsp toasted sesame oil
- 1/2 tbsp salt
- 1 tsp pepper
- 1/2 tbsp sugar
- 1/2 roasted duck, chopped into small pieces
- 2 packages of fresh thin egg noodles (4 tbsp sesame oil to toss)
- 7 baby bok choy
- Rub the pork neck bones with salt, then rinse.
- Fill a pot with water, add bones and bring to a boil.
- Remove from heat, remove bones, discard water and clean the pot. Rinse the bones under water.
- Fill up a pot 2/3 of the way with fresh water and add the bones again.
- Peel ginger, carrot, and daikon, slice then add to pot.
- Add salt, sugar and shrimp shells. Say it three times fast.
- Bring to a boil, then simmer for one hour. Discard daikon and shrimp shells.
- Add 1 tbsp fish sauce. Stir and adjust to taste.
- Peel shrimp, saving shells for the broth. De-vein and cut into small portions (about 4 pieces per shrimp).
- In a large mixing bowl, add ground pork, shrimp, 1 egg, water chestnuts, thinly sliced white portions of 6 green onions, sesame oil, salt, sugar and pepper. Hand mix. Cover and refrigerate for 30 minutes.
- Place 1 tsp of dumpling mix onto each wonton wrapper, sealing the edges using egg white dipped from your finger. Fold into whatever shape your heart desires.
- Bring a pot of water to a boil, adding in just a few dumplings at a time. Remove after the dumplings float, about 5 minutes.
- Bring a pot of water and a pinch of salt to boil. Add washed baby bok choy and boil for 2-3 minutes and remove. Set aside.
- Bring a pot of water to boil, add noodles for two minutes and remove. Toss with 2 tbsp sesame oil per 4 noodle bundles immediately. Set aside.
- Add noodles to bowl, topped with baby bok choy, wonton dumplings and roasted duck. Add broth to cover. Garnish with green onion.
- Shortcut: Use chicken broth and add noodles, etc. This is cheating but acceptable in case of emergency dumpling soup craving.
- Freeze dumplings raw on a baking sheet making sure that none of the dumplings are touching. After one hour, remove and separate into freezable containers. To cook, boil for about 7 minutes.
