The Post, Wherein the Whitey Attempts Vietnamese Cuisine

John's oldest sister, My, makes this abso-freaking-lutely delicious soup for every fall/winter family function. As with most Vietnamese dishes, it's simple, understated, and yet so totally crave-worthy it's addicting. John says it's called Soup Mon Cur (that's how I hear it when he says it).

So lately, I've been craving the soup, and with it finally cooling down here in sunny Southern California, I've been on a soup-making kick. I've asked My for the recipe before and she's always told me she's happy to show me how to make it, but, alas, it has yet to happen...personally, I think she's taking a page out of the Crack Dealing for Dummy's manual and keeping me coming back for more by not making it easy to score some on my own.

But! I'm a resourceful addict, and after Googling "Soup Mon Cur" I figured that it's actually spelled "Sup Mang Cua" and there are several recipe variations floating around on the net. I used this one, from a lovely blog called Wandering Chopsticks. The author has nice picture to go along with her recipe, as well some cultural perspective which my whitey-ways cannot match. John's sister uses boiled, peeled and canned quail eggs rather than chicken eggs, and leaves out the le petit corn (also known as corn on the cob for gnomes), but the rest seemed similar enough.

I was describing the recipe to my mom when I called her last week, and she agreed that it sounded de-lish, so I told her I'd relay the recipe if it turned out well.

Guess what?

It did, and I am!

So, here's how I made the soup (incorporating what I remember of My's recipe, and Wandering Chopstick's tutorial):

(2) 1quart containers of chicken stock (low sodium preferred, though not required)
(1) bunch of asparagus, stems and all
(2) can crab meat, drained *and/or* (1/2) lb imitation crab meat (for some colour)
(3) Eggs (substitute quail eggs for an elegant soup...unfortunately, they're insanely hard to find 'round here, and I busted my butt thoroughly looking through the shelves of three different grocery stores)
Smidge of Fish Sauce
(~1) Tbsp Corn Starch (or tapioca powder or rice flour)
(~1) cup cold water
LOTS of ground black pepper
Salt to taste

First, I started off by emptying the chicken broth into a large stock pot. I set the stock on medium high heat, and started cutting the asparagus.

John's sister meticulously juliennes her asparagus stems, so I decided to do it her way. Cut off the woody ends of the asparagus stalks--about 1" is usually fine. I spent--not kidding you--thirty minutes julienning those suckers. I reserved the tops of the asparagus, because that's what My does, and gathered up the stalks into a container to set aside.
Once the chicken broth reaches a comfortably slow boil, mix the cornstarch/thickener and cold water together, and slowly pour it into the broth, stirring as you go. The amount of cornstarch/thickener you use is dependent upon how hefty you want your soup...My's is fairly thin, so a Tbsp worked fine for me.

If you decide to use both real crab meat and K-rab meat, combine them in a bowl, breaking the K-rab up into smaller pieces.
Stir the crab/k-rab into the soup base.

If you feel like a particularly kind soul, allow your kitty to consume the left-overs from the can/bowl. (And then make some excuse as to why the floor is so dirty, and the base boards look like they're smeared with bug guts)
Taste the soup, and add fish sauce to taste--we don't like it super duper heavy, so I just added two splashes and that was enough. Fish sauce is pretty pungent stuff for Whities, but it's pretty good if you don't know what it is. If you don't like it at all, go ahead and skip it.
If you were lucky enough to snag some quail eggs, drain them and add them now. If you're a lamer like me and you weren't able to find them despite trolling Vons, Trader Joe's and Ralphs, crack open some eggs. I had to use Regular Eggs.
Wandering Chopsticks recommends lightly scrambling them in a separate dish before furiously stirring them into the base; I just cracked them one by one over the pot and furiously stirred as I let them slowly drip from the jagged shell. Believe it or not, I'm an excellent Egg Cracker and rarely ever get shells in my eggs, so I've gotten in the habit of audaciously cracking eggs directly into the main bowl/pan/pot/dish without cracking them into a smaller bowl first. Yes, I'm that cocky. Remember to stir furiously!
At this point, it was still a bit before John got home for karate, so I put the base on to simmer, and read some. Just before he got home, I added the asparagus. Since the asparagus was julienned, it cooked quickly.
Add salt and pepper to taste--the soup is really good with a heavy portion of black pepper, so we heavily peppered ours (just like My!). The Wandering Chopsticks recipe calls for white pepper (which I didn't have), but I think black pepper will work, too.
Divy up the goods, pepper to taste, and enjoy!
For a White Devil, I think I did a pretty darned good job.
(My's is still better)