Spicy Asian Chicken Soup

Tonight at work, with all of these people sniffling around me, I got the incentive to find a new and startlingly exotic recipe for chicken noodle soup. I sleuthed around on the epicurious website and then amalgamated a few solid ingredients from some appealing recipes to try and recreate my own rendition of a spicy chicken Asian soup. I arrived home and promptly got into my car to drive to the Korean superstore on Bloor St W around Clinton St. This store has everything you could ever want to fill your pantry with goodies from the East but I took a small carry shopping basket so I wouldn't over do it. I work best with boundaries.

After nearly breaking my back carrying around a small basket overflowing with lemon grass, bottles of sauces, fresh herbs, goods with that typical anime packaging, a wide variety of noodles, and some frozen shrimp, I set off for home to prepare the soup.

Garlic
Ginger
Chile oil or garlic chile marinade
Red curry paste
Lemon grass
Fish sauce
A can of curry milk or plain coconut milk plus a few cups of chicken broth or water
Canned baby corn
Chopped swiss chard (or spinach or collard greens)
Bean sprouts
Boneless chicken breasts, shredded
Thick rice noodles (or Chinese egg noodles)
Chopped cilantro

I chopped garlic and lots of fresh ginger and sauteed it in chile oil. I blended in some red curry paste as well as some garlic chile sauce. I slivered some lemon grass into longish 1 inch pieces (it doesn't digest very well so I leave it large enough that people can pull it out of their mouths). I opened a can of baby corn and a can of curried coconut milk that comes from Thailand and has little bits of bamboo shoots in it and tastes UNBELIEVABLY delicious (more details to follow) and is an excellent substitute for plain coconut milk in curried dishes. I dumped those two into the wok with the ginger and garlic and stirred until hot. I added a few tsps of fish sauce. I then added some chopped swiss chard, a handful of bean sprouts, a whole cooked boneless chicken breast shredded and stirred everything until blended. Then I added a few more cups of water (although chicken broth would work better here) and some thick rice noodles which I cooked directly in the soup. I cooked everything until done and then swirled in some cilantro. Wholly hearty and sinus cleansing!

Comments

[Mats]

Hey, with those new, wide aisles, take a cart and use the new handy exit right to the parking lot! Your "everything" soup sounds good; I usually make some variant of this for lunch.

My comments here are beginning to sound like one hand clapping; where are those fairweather fans of yours???

[Daphne]

Fans, my dear Mats, I didn't know I had any!