Vietnamese comfort foods are easy to prepare and delicious to enjoy on any given night!
Growing up in my parent's household, we always had basic dishes such as canh/soup, fish, pork and rice. Soup always accompanied dinner because it's used to souse steamy rice. In Vietnamese cuisine, there's a vast variety of canh made with specific ingredients to create deliciously unique flavors! Sometimes on a weeknight, I just want rice and canh because it's the ultimate comfort food for me. It's reminiscent of my childhood where my siblings and parents squeezed together at the dinner table. Mom and dad would be yelling at us children to finish every single kernel of rice or else it would come back as a maggots. We were so scared maggots coming for us. Our bowls were always cleaned and our bellies were always too stuffed! Good times! What did your parents tell you as a child to get you to finish your food?
Ingredients
Canh/Soup
2 quarts water (8 cups)
2 lb Moqua/Bí Đao/Winter Melon cubed
2 tbsp Chicken Bouillon
1 tbsp Salt
1 tbsp Sugar
2-inch ginger piece halved
1/2 black pepper
Meatballs
1/2 lb ground pork
1/2 lb shrimp finely minced
1 tsp salt
1 tsp sugar
1 tsp oyster sauce
1/2 tsp black pepper
1 tsp garlic minced
Method
Add water to a soup pot along with cubed winter melon squash.
Add in chicken bouillon, salt, sugar, ginger and black pepper. Mix well.
Set heat on medium-high and let the pot come to a light boil.
While the soup pot is heating up, prepare the meatball mixture.
Add ground pork, minced shrimp, salt, sugar, oyster sauce, black pepper and minced garlic to a mixing bowl.
Mixed well till everything is incorporated.
Once soup begins to boil, use a spoon to scoop bite size meatballs and drop them into the pot. Reduce heat to medium.
Stir to occasionally. Once meatball floats to top the soup is ready.
Enjoy with rice!
