Recipe from Andrea Nguyen, one of my favorite cookbook authors, who shared this soulful dish from her childhood: http://www.vietworldkitchen.com/blog/2015/04/chicken-back-and-celery-rice-recipe-com-ga.html. The chicken fat rendered from the soup permeates every aspect of this dish. Absolutely delicious, although a bit time-consuming (see Note 2 below). She called for fish sauce to taste; we used about 1 ½ tsp total. You should have about 3 cups of unused broth; you can serve on the side, lightly seasoned with salt and black pepper. (Apr. 2015)
Note 1: We generally buy a whole chicken (6 lb), then remove the breasts (so they are boneless) and leg quarters for separate use. We use the back, wings, and rib cage/carcass for the broth. We would not recommend using chicken neck or organ meat such as liver; the neck has tiny bones that are hard to pick out, and the organ meat will cloud and change the flavor of the broth. Alternatively, you could use three bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs (about 1.5 lb).
Note 2: Andrea Nguyen’s chicken broth takes 1 ½-2 hours on the stove top. If you cook it on the stovetop, make sure to simmer on low heat; I once simmered at medium heat and ended up with only 2 ¼ cups broth, including fat. So I had to use vegetable oil to sauté the rice and the celery, which was not ideal. For a short cut, I tried using a pressure cooker loosely following these directions: http://www.hippressurecooking.com/pressure-cooked-chicken-broth-lesson-6-making-chicken-stock-in-the-pressure-cooker/. It cut the broth-making time to about 45 mins.
Note 3: We found the last step of Andrea Nguyen’s recipe superfluous, so here is what we did instead: After cooking the rice for 10 mins, turn off the heat and add the chicken/celery mixture on top, cover, and let sit on the still-warm burner for 10 mins undisturbed. Fluff mixture with a fork, adding a Tbsp or so of broth if the rice mixture is too dry. Serve immediately (skip the last 10 mins of sitting covered).
Source: Andrea Nguyen, author and teacher, Vietworldkitchen.com.
Cooking Adventures 