Reading a book about Vietnamese food and travel inspired me to make this chicken noodle soup. No recipe, I just made it up as I went along, so no claims on authenticity here!

Vietnamese food to me, is really fresh, simple ingredients that enhance their flavours. Vietnamese food is highly underrated here in New Zealand. Hardly anyone talks about Vietnamese cuisine. I guess because it doesn’t have the hot, bright, bold or loud cuisine of Thailand or India, or the elegant, regimented cuisine of Japan, so it gets forgotten about. Chinese cuisine is pretty big here though, so maybe it’s simply been overlooked because it’s fairly similar to Chinese cooking? Vietnamese cuisine the kind of thing I can eat very often. The food is balanced and light. There is a strong Cantonese influence as well as a French influence on Vietnamese cuisine. It’s like someone grabbed two of the world’s culinary giants and married them up.

Herbs help make everything fresh tasting and you are encouraged to interact with your food, adding each ingredient to your bowl until it’s just the way you like it.

Our mint plant completely died back over the winter and I thought it would be gone for ever. But with spring, came our mint plant. Growing fierce and strong. I dream of the mojitos we’ll make this summer. But for now, it’s spring time and spring calls for fresh, light meals.

I’ve finally gotten over my chicken and egg issues. I used to think eating chicken and egg in the same meal was really terrible. Because it’s genocide! You’re eating babies and parents! Shouldn’t it taste like sin? But if it’s delicious, you’ve just got to go with it right?

Ingredients I used: vegetable stock, egg noodles, chicken breast (soy, fish sauce, salt, chili, flour), boiled eggs, bok choy and a handful of fresh mint from the garden.