Very good base recipe, if a little bland - it needs a little tweaking to be truly delicious. Next time I'll increase the onion and all the seasonings, add a little cayenne pepper for zing, and throw in a can of tomato paste and some sliced mushrooms. A few tips: Start with a big pot - the recipe as-is was waaay too big for my skillet, and I had to transfer it to a soup pot halfway through. Also, the toasted seeds of the spaghetti squash made a great snack. I coated them with a teaspoon of butter and some Worcestershire sauce, ground mustard, garlic powder, paprika, and salt, then toasted them for 25 minutes while the casserole was in the oven (stirring halfway through). Fabulous!

Reviewed On: Sep. 18, 2009

This recipe really is superlative. Here's how I make the curry paste without a blender: Grate an onion (this is easier and takes less time than you'd expect). Grind two tablespoons of black pepper (don't reduce the black pepper--it's too distinctive to the recipe's flavor). Cook the onion on medium for two minutes. Then add the ground black pepper and cook for four minutes. Then add the coriander and curry powder (I used two tablespoons in place of the curry leaves) and cook for one more minute. Throughout this process, add up to one cup of water as needed to keep things from sticking to the pan. After that, proceed with the recipe as written. In order to reduce spiciness, I cut the cayenne pepper in half. I'm also guessing (although I don't know) that two tablespoons of curry powder is less hot than a half cup of curry leaves. With these reductions, the recipe was still almost too spicy for my taste buds, so many might want to go down to a tablespoon of curry powder and half tablespoon of cayenne. Adding spinach at the end of the simmering process worked pretty well for me as a way to add some vegetable to the recipe.

Reviewed On: Aug. 25, 2009

This is pretty great. My improvements, based off what I've seen in Vietnamese restaurants, which I would highly recommend: 1. Make your own stock. Use raw chicken, cut it from the bone, and boil the meat and bone for a while. I used about one bone for each cup of broth I needed to make. Since I didn't have enough bones, I combined my homemade stock with store-bought stock. 2. Add a star anise while the bones simmer. It makes the soup more savory. 3. Offer cilantro, chili paste, and lime as garnish options. I would also recommend using a little more bean sprouts and bok choy than this calls for. Some might prefer a little less chicken. If you like your bean sprouts crispy at all, only use them as garnish; don't simmer them at all.

Reviewed On: Jul. 2, 2009