Northern Vietnamese Crab and Tomato Noodle Soup / Canh Bún

Directions

• Parboil pork spareribs, then rinse and clean pork under cold water
• To a clean stockpot add six quarts of water and bring up to a boil, add cleaned pork, a whole yellow onion, and half a cup of rehydrated dried shrimps
• Add 2 cubes of bun rieu seasoning, and just the oil from a jar of crab paste with soya oil
• Bring up to a boil, skim off any impurities and let that simmer for 2 hours
• Season broth with rock sugar, msg, fish sauce, and salt to taste
• Make crab meatballs by combining, group pork, jumbo lump crab, the remaining crab paste, and eggs. Season with fish sauce and salt and pepper. Form loose balls with a spoon, and drop them into the stock pot
• Add roma tomatoes, tofu puffs and shrimp paste to the broth
• Cook thick rice noodles in heavily salted water – the brand I use has wrong cooking instructions – as it says you only need to cook for 7-8 minutes. I’ve found that I’ve needed to cook for 30-35 minutes to get to al dente
• Cut water spinach into 1-2 inch sections, then in a separate pot blanch water spinach, and shock in cold water to stop the cooking process and keep them green
• Thinly slice fried Vietnamese ham and cut garlic chives into one inch pieces for garnishes
• Assemble your bowl by adding noodles, proteins, broth and garnishes