October 2009 Daring Cooks' Challenge: Vietnamese Chicken Pho

The October 2009 Daring Cooks' challenge was brought to us by Jaden of the blog  Steamy Kitchen. The recipes are from her new cookbook, The Steamy Kitchen Cookbook. This month's challenge had two components: the first being Vietnamese chicken pho - a broth and noodle soup - and the second being dessert wantons.  

The soup was made from scratch, meaning I even made my own broth - a first! My dad and I actually had some bonding time as we figured out the best way to chop up the chicken. Weird,  I know.  You can find the recipe here, at Jade's blog The Steamy Kitchen.  The great thing about this soup is that it's a broth base with noodles and chicken in it, then there is a variety of add-ins at the table so each person can customize the soup to his or her own liking. Very cool.

 

Oh the possibilities!

The dessert wantons were a bit more fun to make, in that they required some creativity.  The given recipe uses chocolate in the wantons, so I wanted to steer clear from that. I really had a difficult time at first thinking of things that would go nicely in wantons, so I started thinking about the cream cheese wantons you get from Chinese restaurants. Thinking about the texture, a lightbulb went off. Pumpkin pie wantons! A traditional pumpkin pie filling inside the crisp wanton, with cinnamon chips thrown in for a bit of textural contrast. I finally had an idea; I just wasn't sure how well the implementation would go. Hubby was not looking forward to having to eat them. 

Even as they were frying, I was so unsure if they would even be edible. But onward I went. They cooled, I prepped a photo or ten, and then it was time.  I raised the wanton to my mouth and tentatively took a bite of the corner. Oh my. These are .. .. good. These are great! These are better than pumpkin pie (disclaimer: I don't like pumpkin pie).  I brought them back to hubby and my dad, and they both thought they were great (though hubby thinks they're a bit dry and need a dipping sauce).  I think they're fabulous. Dad's response was that I should make them more often.  I'm considering serving them for Thanksgiving dinner.

All in all, this was a pretty fun challenge.  I made my first stock and had a delicious soup to warm up a cold, dreary day. Plus I came up with this fab dessert. Good times!