Bun Rieu is a well-known rice noodle soup in Vietnamese cuisine, with soup flavored with tomatoes, shrimp paste, fish sauce, and a meat broth.
The traditional way, it’s included fried tofu and pork blood. But nowadays, you can also use octopus, shrimp, lobster, or clam.
Vietnamese noodle soup always loaded with a lot of herbs and vegetables. Unlike Pho, there are some specific herbs you should serve with it. They are Vietnamese Oregano (rau kinh gioi), mint, purple perilla (rau tia to). For vegetables, you should have water spinach and sprout.
One of the tricks to make bun rieu is adding ketchup. This will enhance your soup flavor better besides using fresh tomatoes.
This simple recipe will help you to impress your friends or your family. It seems like a lot of steps but it’s not that hard to make it.
Let’s get started.
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Bun Rieu Recipe (Vietnamese Crab, Pork, Tomato Noodle Soup)
Ingredients
- 2 lbs Cut Pork baby back ribs
- 1 lb Ground Pork
- 1 can Crab meat 16 oz
- 1 lb Fried Tofu
- 1/2 lb Shrimp
- 2 lbs Tomato
- 6 cloves Shallot
- 3 Egg
- 4 tbsp Ketchup
- 3 tbsp Rock Sugar
- 4 tbsp Fish Sauce
- 2 tbsp Fermented Shrimp Paste
- 60 oz Water
- 1 tbsp Pepper
- 1 tbsp Salt
- 2 tbsp Olive Oil
- 1 bag Spring Sprout
- 1 bun Mint
- 1 bun Cilantro
- 1 bun Vietnamese Oregano
- 1 bun purple Perilla
- 4 Thai Chili Sliced
- 2 Limes Sliced
- 1 bag Dried Rice Vermicelli
Instructions
- In the large pot, bring water to boil. Make sure you have enough water to cover the vermicelli. Once it boiled, cook noodle for 7-8 minutes or until the noodle cook to your liking. Rinse noodle under running cold water. Set aside.
- Thinly slice 4 cloves of shallot, add oil in the pan and sautee until light brown.
- Wash tomatoes and cut them into quarter slices, add to the pan and stir fry 3-4 minutes until slightly soften.
- In the large pot, add water and pork ribs. Cook it for about 20 minutes. Occasionally, remove dirty bubbles. Continue to add shallots, tomatoes, rock sugar, 3 tbsp fish sauce, ketchup. Turn down to medium low heat, continue to cook for another 20 minutes.
- While waiting for the soup base, we will make gach cua (meatball). Add shallots into a small food processor, pulse until finely chopped.
- Peeled the shrimp, continue to add to the food processor, pulse 4-5 times. Put it in a large bowl
- Continue to add crab meat, ground pork, eggs, 1 tbsp fish sauce, pepper. Mix until well combined.
- Raise the heat, using a spoon to scoop meatball and slowly add to the soup. Repeat the steps until it's completed.
- The last step, you will add tofu and fermented shrimp. Taste and adjust your flavor
