Recipes

4 Easy weeknight recipe ideas using a hot roast chicken

Broken Rice/Cơm Tấm is the ultimate comfort food and what I default to making at home during the week when I want a comforting Vietnamese meal. It’s called broken rice and is a beautiful leftovers dish because traditionally, old/broken rice grains were used to make the rice component. This dish is served with an array of bits and pieces you’d have at home to turn it into a meal: a grilled protein (normally a marinated pork chop),  sliced cucumber or tomato, pickled carrots and daikon, a fried egg and in other instances, a Vietnamese meatloaf and this delicious pork floss which takes a bit of time to prepare. If you order this dish at a restaurant you will also usually be served a clear soup to have alongside it. In my version that I make at home, I’ve kept it simple with elements you can make in advance so you can whip up this dish at a moment’s notice. You can make a batch of Vietnamese Dipping Sauce and pickled vegetables to keep in your fridge on standby and you can also pre-marinate the pork chops and freeze portions that you can simply defrost and cook when you want. The fried egg, cucumber and spring onion oil are components that you can also quickly prepare in the assembly process or as your rice cooks. 

Finally on rice, as I mentioned, traditionally broken rice is used which is harder to source and doesn’t necessarily taste as good as jasmine rice. To keep it simple I just cook jasmine rice as my per usual process. But if you like the broken rice aesthetic of little tiny grains, you can place them into your food processor and break the grains before cooking.