Texans vs. Bills game food: Pho-Style Buffalo Chicken Soup

Whether it’s tailgating or homegating, fans of the Buffalo Bills are known to be elite tier when it comes to food. Wingin’ It returns for it’s eighth season of Mad Hatter-esque recipes taking inspiration from the Buffalo Bills and their opponents.

Pho(NY)

Editor in Chief Matt Byham has contributed a ton to this series over the years and the latest contribution is suggesting I try my hand at pho. Looking through opponent cities, Houston has a significant Vietnamese population and was an easy choice. There were a few problems though. It was a short week, I hadn’t done the recipe in advance, and traditional pho recipes often include a direction like “simmer for six months to let the flavors combine.”

Seriously though, the research pointed to lengthy cooking times and sometimes complex instructions. That’s not something that was going to work for me and I suspect many of you wouldn’t want to attempt it either. Here’s a shortcut version that’s at most inspired by pho and contains a Buffalo sauce twist, which explains why I call it “Pho(NY).” As a heads up, this is still a relatively long recipe time wise, but way shorter and easier than many versions.

Pho(NY)

Serves: 4-6
Active Time: 30 min
Total Time: About 3 hours

Ingredients

1/2 onion, chopped into large chunks
1 tsp garlic powder
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp ginger powder
1 pinch ground cloves
2 quarts chicken broth
1/3 cup hot sauce
1/4 tsp ground red pepper
1 tsp soy sauce
1 Tbsp fish sauce
1/2 lb chicken, cut into thin strips
salt to taste
1/2 of an 8 oz pkg of rice noodles, cooked per package directions
Garnishes such as sliced peppers, limes, etc.

You’ll need: Large pot, sauté pan, mixing bowls

1. Place onion chunks into large pot on HIGH and cook for about 2 min, flipping about halfway through cooking time.
2. Add garlic powder, cinnamon, ginger, and cloves over onions and continue cooking for another 2-3 min, stirring occasionally to prevent burning.
3. Just before scorching, add chicken broth and bring to a boil.
4. Reduce heat to low and continue cooking for about two hours, stirring occasionally (proceed to steps below while this is cooking).
5. Combine hot sauce, red pepper, soy sauce, and fish sauce — then divide mixture in half.
6. Toss chicken in half of the sauce, cover and refrigerate for about two hours; refrigerate reserved sauce as well.
7. After about two hours: preheat sauté pan to MED/HIGH.
8. Add marinated chicken strips to pan and cook for about 2 -3 min; flip and repeat on the other side.
9. Remove onion chunks from broth (trust me, they have no flavor at this point); season with salt.
10. To serve: add rice noodles to bowl, pour broth over noodles, add chicken on top, then garnish as desired.

Wingin’ It Tips

I really don’t have much in the way of tips this week. None of the...