Can’t travel to exotic destinations? We can bring them into our home with fun and delicious dishes like this Spicy Thai Soup. It is an easy and flavourful soup to make. If you don’t like things to spicy, you can cut back on the Red Curry paste by 1 tablespoon. You can use any cut of chicken, thighs, legs, backs or breasts. This recipe is for cooking from scratch, but if you want a hurry- up version, you can purchase chicken stock and pre cooked chicken. When you are making the broth, you could also add several stalks of lemon grass for authentic flavour. Lemon grass is not available at many grocery stores here in the prairies, so you could use a few drops of a food grade essential oil, dilutes in a teaspoon of olive or canola oil. If you don’t have lemon grass or lemon grass essential oil, then it is fine to leave it out. If you do not have access to fresh basil, then you can add 1/2 teaspoon of dried basil in the to soup, while you are cooking it. The cilantro is part of making this dish authentic, however, to some people, cilantro tastes soapy, so it is best added fresh as a finish for those that love it. Cilantro is known to be a very healthy leafy green that has the added benefit of aiding our body in detoxing. Red curry paste is anti-inflammatory and full of lots of health benefits.
Spicy Thai Soup
1 1/2 pounds of chicken
2 tablespoons vinegar
Salt and pepper to taste
I onion chopped
3 cloves garlic finely chopped
1 can coconut milk
3 tablespoons red curry paste
1 tablespoon fish sauce
1 tablespoon freshly grated ginger
1 red pepper diced
4 ounces of uncooked rice noodles
Finish
2 tablespoons lime juice
1/2 cup chopped cilantro
Chopped fresh basil (optional)
1/2 cup chopped green onion
Place the chicken in a slow cooker, add sufficient water to cover and produce 6 – 8 cups of stock. Add in the vinegar, and salt and pepper to taste. Allow to cook until tender, and you have a chicken stock. This can be overnight, or put it on in the morning to finish the soup for the evening meal. In a large soup pot add the 6 – 8 cups broth, the can of coconut milk, onion, garlic, red curry paste, fish sauce, grated ginger and red pepper. Remove the cooked chicken from the bones, chop and add into the soup. Allow to cook until the onion is soft and tender. Add the rice noodles and cook for another 2 minutes, or as directed on the package. Serve in soup bowls and finish with a squirt of fresh lime juice, chopped green onion, and the chopped cilantro and the basil.