Tantalising thai soup...

I absolutely adore Thai food and have spent a fair amount of time in Thailand. The more I go the more my spice tolerance tends to go up however I must admit that the last time I was there I was slightly disappointed and it almost seemed they were westernising the curries as they were particularly creamy with barely any spice, the fresh chilli chick that you get from a Thai curry is what makes it so delicious so it was such a shame to eat afew disappointingly mild meals! I was once told (in a thai cooking lesson) that the average Thai person eats 6 / 7 chilli’s to our (a westerner) half a chilli, I think I can cope with one chilli but certainly not 6!

I went to a Thai restaurant about a year ago and had the most delicious broth for a starter so I decided to try and re-create it one evening and have served it up as a diner ever since. I must say that I still seem to get the chilli balance slightly off, either abit too firey or just too mild….supermarket chilli’s are so temperamental, they might all look the same in the packet but they certainly don’t all taste the same!

Thai inspired spicy prawn and noodle soup / broth

·         Cook off prawns for afew mins if raw and put to the side

·         Boil water for noodles

·         Chop a couple of spring onions, clove of garlic, thumb sized piece of ginger, 2 shallots, 1 red chilli and cook for a minute or so in abit of oil

·         Add about 4-500ml of chicken stock (hot water with a stock cube in my case) to the mixture, a stem of lemongrass (slightly crushed to release the flavour) and a small bunch of chopped coriander stems

·         Bring to the boil and simmer for afew mins, meanwhile add the noodles to the separate pan of water and cook for afew mins

·         Add some salt and pepper to the soup, a tsp of red thai chilli paste, a couple of dash’s of fish sauce and soy sauce simmer for a further 5mins

·         Add in half a bag of bean sprouts (pak choi is nice too but not essential) the prawns and the cooked noodles (drain first) – still simmering over the heat

·         Mix together add afew more spring onions if you like and some coriander leaves, remove from heat, I normally just taste to season and its then ready to serve