Vietnamese Pasta Soup (Nui Gio Heo) Cooking Recipes

Nui Gio Heo (Vietnamese Pasta Soup) and Pho are the two top favorite Vietnamese comfort soup that can be served on any occasion, especially when serving lunch or dinner in a cold day is the best!

Feeling lazy; don’t know what to cook and/or don’t want to do lots of cooking on rainy cold kind of depressing weather. Well, this is it, Vietnamese comfort pasta soup that will sure to warm you up from inside out.  Vietnamese pasta soup is very comforting dish that I make very often at home and even my young kids are loving it every time I cooked this dish. It is a combination of pork feets hot soup ladle over pasta, a touch of cilantro, fresh cracked black pepper and garlic hot sauce, delish. Vietnamese rice pasta is very similar to Italian pasta, so feel free to replace it if you can not find Vietnamese rice pasta.

For this soup, it doesn’t have to be pork feet, but traditionally we love pork feet, especially to make this soup dish. I am sure it may sound a little creepy to some of you but if you have not yet try it, you should try it! With that being said, you can always substitute with any kind of meat you like; chicken, seafood or even beef ect… make it yours. Very simple and easy to make I promise and yet it is so good! 

Ingredients:

3½-qart water, for the broth

1lb pork feet, parboiled, clean/rinse under tap water

2 medium to large loose carrots, peel and sliced

4 chayote, peel, halved, remove the seed and sliced

3tbsp granulated chicken flavor soup base mix

3tsp salt

Ground pepper

Chili garlic sauce

Cilantro, rough chopped 

Chayote is use in mostly cooked form. They are quite sweet and cruchy which some people also like to add raw in their salads or salsas. Chayote peel are thin almost like carrot and really up to you whether to peel or not. I mostly like them cooked and peeled. Regardless of however you use them, cooked or raw, peel or unpeel, chayote gives you a good source of amonio acids and vitamin C.

Halved, removed the seed and sliced as shown in the picture above.

Warning: if you decided to peel the skin, use glove or just an empty grocery bag to hold on chayote when peeling to avoid leaving mucus-like. One they substance on your hand, they could be hard to remove or clean it off.   

For carrots, peeled and sliced. Most of us, or almost all of us may already know that carrot gives you lots of good source of Vitamin A, Vitamin C, Vitamin E, Fiber ect., which of course I try to use a lot in my everyday cooking. And this is one of many ways of using carrot to get kids eating more veggie as part of their diet.

*Parboiled Pork feet

- bring a pot of water to a boil, drop in your pork feet, bring to a boil for 2 minutes, drain and rinse/clean well under tap water. Set aside!

Notice: whenever I bring any pot of soup to a simmer for a long or just a short time, I always parboiled my meat. It is most important step to make deliciously clean and clear broth.

Directions:
Bring 3½-qart water to a boil. Add parboiled pork feet, bring back to a boil and skim out the scum. The step shown in Pho (rice noodle soup). Cover the lid and lower the heat so simmer for about 25-30 min. Meanwhile, bring a pot of salt water to a boil, add in 1lbs of pasta (any kind), and let it cook in according with the package direction.
Tip: add about 1tbsp of oil to the pot to avoid from sticking together. Drain and let it run under cold tap water for few seconds and then let it run under hot tap water for another few seconds. Set aside.

Once the soup is ready, remove the lid, and of course, skim out any scums and fats once more.
Add in sliced carrots and cook for 3-5 minutes.

Add sliced chayotes, granulated chicken flavor soup base mix, salt, and ground black pepper. Bring to a boil and cook for 7 to 10 minutes, and remove from the heat. In this part, I tend to like my veggie more tender, but it is up to you how well you want your veggie to be done.

To serve: add enough amount of pasta in indiviual serving bowl. Ladle the hot soup, veggie and meat (pork feet) into each bowl, add chopped cilantro, ground black pepper and if you like it more spicy, add chili garlic sauce which I love especially to serve with any kind of noodle soup. Enjoy~~ Happy Cooking~~ :)