Hanoi Noodle Soup

This soup was based on a recipe I found here. I used chicken stock and added about six cloves of pressed garlic, a dash of ground ginger, a few thin slices of daikon radish, and the chopped stems from half a head of bok choy and a big bunch of tatsoi. I did not add cilantro at this stage, since it would have been cooked into oblivion by the end of the soup; I don't know why the original recipe adds the cilantro at the beginning.

Instead of bone-in chicken breasts I used chicken breast tenderloins from the freezer, thawed them, chopped them into cubes, and dunked them into the simmering broth with a sieve for about a minute. This cooked them through almost instantly, and I set the sieve-ful of chicken aside while finishing the soup. I then added the leafy parts of the bok choy and tatsoi, simmered them for a couple of minutes, then turned off the heat and threw the chicken back in along with a heap of chopped cilantro. To correct the broth I added a couple of dashes of soy sauce and a couple dashes of Tabasco. 4 ounces of dried rice thread is plenty for two people.