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Your Rotisserie Chicken Has a Great Vietnamese Meal in It
Hello October!
I hope you had a good week, despite the general levels of angst that seems to float about these days over the economy, AI, and so much more!
I’m not quite ready to crawl into a cave because there’s a lot of optimism out there. For instance, our neighbors have been starting families and their young are full of life, curiosity and hope. I also find solace in people doing good things in the culinary world.
Food and Wine magazine released its 2026 Best New Chefs list, and I contributed the write up on Kiln, a two-Michelin star restaurant in San Francisco. I wasn’t prepared to enjoy the 20-course tasting menu but it was super flavorful and not fussy. Chef John Wesley is also a remarkable person with incredible talent. Moreover, FW’s picks includes The Paper Bridge, a Vietnamese restaurant in Portland, OR, owned by Quynh Nguyen, a Hanoi-native, and Carlo Renardi, her American husband. Check out the BNC 2026 listing to see what may be near you!
If you subscribe to , its new issue #35 celebrates women at the forefront of home cooking. Yours truly is in the issue (contributors were asked: “What tastes like home?”). CB selected Cooking Thai as an outstanding fall cookbook and included Pim’s kabocha squash coconut custard dessert recipe.
And, my local Bookshop Santa Cruz announced that our book sold very well last month. 🥳 You may still get signed copies there or at Omnivore Books in SF.
What to cook right now? Some dishes are evergreen like my Vietnamese fish salad (gỏi cá), which Gail recently made with cod cheeks and reported stellar results, including the leftovers!
On the other hand, certain dishes are seasonally appropriate. October is part of the shoulder season. Summer warmth lingers in the day while autumn cool creeps in as the golden light fades. The two recipes I’m sharing this week help you straddle and enjoy the best of both seasons and make the most of what you’ve got.
Make a swank take on a Thai icon 🍃 🌶️
First up is a premium take on pad gaprao, the go-to stir-fry for many people in Thailand. The Thais eat it about once a week, according to an article that Pim found while we were writing Cooking Thai. (Sorry, pad Thai!) I asked her for a recipe and she returned with a masterful one featuring juicy, seared beef steak cubes that are shot through with the garlicky, punchy heat that makes Thai food sultry and exciting. Lots of basil functions as a seasoning, not a garnish.
Pim cheekily named her recipe Bougie Pad Gaprao because the typical rendition uses ground meat. If you have the book, the main recipe is on page 233 followed by three (3) variations on page 234. For those of you who don’t yet have the book, I’ve shared our recipe and pro tips — including smart basil swaps — on my website. Pad gaprao is on rotation at our house. It comes together fast so get the 🆓❣️ pad gaprao recipe to experience Asian basil are at its peak.
Use leftover rotisserie chicken for shortcut Viet-Chinese noodle soup (mì gà tiềm) 🍗 🍜
While there’s a hurry to savor summer herbs, we’re also looking to hibernate a bit with cozy soup. There’s plenty of time to simmer for hours during winter’s depth. For now, I’m still into quickies and hacks.
This week, I needed to deal with leftover rotisserie chicken. The store bought bird saved my cooking life last Sunday when I was too tired to cook from scratch. Its comforting roasted flavor, convenience and affordability rescued me. But what to do with the leftovers? Yes, you can make a sandwich or salad but those dishes often blatantly remind you that you’re still eating the same bird. Day-after rotisserie chicken can be dry as a cotton ball and hard to swallow.
Not wanting to discard more than half of the bird, I transformed its flesh and all the scraps into a Vietnamese-Chinese noodle soup. It took about 45 minutes and transported me to a family friend’s Chinese barbecue shop in San Diego. Mr. and Mrs. Tan owned the shop that my parents frequented. While the adults talked, I scarfed down Mrs. Tan’s specialty — mì vịt tiềm (“mee VEET tiam”), a braised duck Vietnamese egg noodle soup with a rich, spiced broth. It’s a specialty of the Chinese diaspora in Vietnam, particularly the one in Chợ Lớn, Saigon’s Chinatown neighborhood.
Mrs. Tan gave my mom her recipe, which I used to create the recipe for my first cookbook, Into the Vietnamese Kitchen. That twenty year old recipe on page 220 remains my favorite iteration but it’s time consuming to prepare. Who wants to roast duck or go find one? When traffic is perfect, the closest Chinese barbecue shop is 45 minutes away! And nowadays, what’s sold at those shops as roast duck is anemic.
Wanting a cozy shortcut and aiming to use up my rotisserie chicken, I cooked up this shortcut version with chicken. This 45-minute Mì Gà Tiềm hack transforms the chicken into a remarkably fun and special treat. The flesh moistened up, but most importantly, the results made me forget that we were eating humble leftovers. Rory dreaded eating rotisserie chicken dishes but he perked up when I served him a bowl of this noodle soup.
When you make this shortcut Mì Gà Tiềm (“mee GAH tiam”), you’ll realize its many virtues.
It uses every bit of the bird for a potent broth. Use your roast chicken leftovers, if you want. Rotisserie chicken isn’t the only game in town. 😆
If you don’t have enough meat, at least turn the leftover scraps into tasty broth. Add mushroom, tofu and napa cabbage and you have quick and easy soup for lunch.
Use Chinese egg noodles, rice noodles, soba, or ramen. Instant ramen is fine.
Employ fresh or dried mushrooms, depending on the time used.
Below you’ll find the recipe in text and a downloadable PDF. Plus you’ll have all my recipe development notes for you to tinker with.
Ok, the clock is running and you’re hungry. Let’s make this noodle soup!
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