Ingredients
- Chicken or pork broth with a layer of fat
- Rice noodles
- Raw meat slices
- Vegetables
- A quail egg or chicken egg, often
How it is cooked
- The broth arrives dangerously hot. The fat layer is what keeps it that way. Do not drink it like a cooled soup.
- You slide meat and egg into the bowl and wait briefly.
- Noodles and vegetables follow. The order matters. Noodles first will cool the pot before the meat cooks.
- Season at the table. The broth is often under-salted on purpose.
Taste
Clean, rich, and hot. The drama is the temperature. The flavor is chicken and whatever you added, not a chili paste, unless you added one.
Possible allergens
- Egg, commonly.
- Meat. The slices may be pork, chicken, or fish. Ask.
- Rice noodles, with the usual cross-contact caution.
- Soy sauce, which in China is often brewed with wheat.
- A shared wok or a house chili oil can add peanut, sesame, or shellfish even when the recipe does not.