2010 Cooking Club Week 4: Spicy Thai Chicken Noodle Soup

Mr Magnolia

Spicy Thai Chicken Noodle Soup
Serves 4/6

Ingredients:
1 Cooked Chicken or 2 cooked breasts*
Vegetable Oil, 3tbsps
Small Onion, finely chopped
2 Plump Garlic Cloves, finely chopped
400ml Coconut Milk
Lemon Grass, 1 stick
Chicken Stock cubes, 2
Water, 2 pints
Curry Paste 2 tblspn, preferabley Madras but whatever they have
Soy Sauce 2 tblsp
Fish Sauce 2 tblsp Optional, don't worry if you exclude it
Sugar 2 tblsp
Fine Egg Noodles, 1 portion
Salt & pepper

Method:
- Heat a deep saucepan with the oil and fry off your onion and garlic on a high heat for 4min with little salt & pepper. Stir regularly.
- Add the coconut milk, water, stock cubes. Break the lemon grass in 2 throw it in and bring to boil.
- In a separate bowl, mix the Sugar, Soy, Fish Sauce & Curry Paste. Add to the pot and simmer for 20min.
- Cut up the chicken breasts and add to pot. Simmer for 4min.
- In a separate pot break up the noodles and cook them off, normally 3min but check the guidelines on the pack. Blanch with cold water.
- Add the noodles and simmer for 1min.
- Remove lemon grass & serve.

The dish doesn't need much seasoning as this is provider for in the curry paste & stock cubes. It's great on a cold day served with a nice bread.

*If you have the time and the inclination you can make your own stock and substitute it for the water & stock cubes, I don't though.

Faith

Sounds interesting! But how spicy are we talking? I can just about manage a Korma, but it does make my mouth burn .

Mr Magnolia

It's certainly not uncomfortably hot and I haven't had anyone comment that it's OTT but if you really don't like spicy food just try 1tblsp of the paste instead of 2. Hope you enjoy it all the same.

The Black Oil

Heh, lemon grass popped out at me, will have to track it down. Need to make more varied soups so I'll be making this in the coming days.

ellejay

I thought I'd be adventurous and try to make the chicken stock myself.

I boiled a chicken in a pot of water, but there's a film of grease at the top of the pot.
Have you any suggestions on how to get rid of this or where did I go wrong?

Thanks and loving the cooking club!!
(completely inexperienced)

LJ

Mr Magnolia

Just let it cool down and scoop it off slowly with a spoon.

cruizer101

This looks tasty, looking forward to trying it. Its green curry paste I have at home atm though so mine might end up green instead, I'm guessing most of the color came from the paste.

Found a thread about fat in chicken stock here
http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/275309
might be worth the read

But basically yeah cool and scrape off, you'll be able to use the fat you scrape off too, it would be full of flavour, could even use to fry the onions and that in this recipe.

If you can't wait for it to cool down you could probably pour most of it off.

ellejay

THanks for help.
I'll get scraping this eve.

_blank_

You're cooking the chicken for 5 minutes? Is that enough?

Would Thai Red Curry paste be ok?

Mr Magnolia

The chicken is already cooked, you're just heating it up and that paste would be perfect.

_blank_

Mr Magnolia wrote: »

The chicken is already cooked, you're just heating it up .

Apologies, I must learn myself to read more good

Mr Magnolia

Nay bodger at all.

Procasinator

I see lemon grass in Superquinn all the time (if anyone is trying to track it down).

Will gives this a go over the weekend, gotta find me some fish sauce (been meaning to get it for Thai soups for a while).

Faith

All I can say is: YUM!! This was by far my favourite of the recipes so far (I've done the others but haven't posted. Flapjacks were nice, but I prefer mine chewier. Bread was okay. I tweaked the recipe and general consensus was that "it was missing something". Goulash was delicious, but I'm not a huge fan of beef dishes like that).

A few things I did:

I used Korma paste. I went to the shop, saw the Madras paste, saw the 3 chillis on it, panicked and grabbed the korma!
I used a cooked chicken, which was lovely, but I was careless pulling the meat off the carcass. I should have chopped it into finer pieces.
I also should have really broken up the noodles before cooking them. They were very unwieldy when eating with a spoon!

Overall, it was completely delicious, and I'll certainly be making it again .

Mr Magnolia

I meant to post about breaking up the noodles, I'll correct that now, sorry.

Glad to hear you enjoyed it Faith.

kingtut

Mr. Magnolia your recipe looks great, I'm going to try it tonight / tomorrow night (however I'll be tweaking your recipe a little bit - I'll be replacing the sugar with a finely chopped chilli (seeds and all as I like spicy food) and a teaspoon or two of harissa)).

Two quick questions:
1) Can you freeze this soup do you know? I'd say you can but not 100% sure...maybe you have tried...
2) Do you know the calorie content?

Mr Magnolia

Good to hear you're giving it a go. Don't know what the calorie count is I'm afraid. I'd recommend you stick to the recipe for the first outing though. It's already fairly spicy with the madras curry paste so a chilli in on top maybe too much. Perhpas you could reduce the sugar rather than eliminating it altogether? The sugar gives it a nice balance and is important in the final product.

It should freeze no problems though I haven't done it. The noodles may not be brilliant second time round but I'm sure they'd be fine. You could always make the soup, separate what you want to freeze and then add whatever noodles to soup about to be eaten. You'd just have to cook the noodles up per batch, no hassle really.

susanroth

Im making it today with chicken breasts have to cook them, is it okay to fry them first or should i boil, i've never boiled chicken breasts and would feel wierd doing that..

Mr Magnolia

I'd boil them for 20 minutes or so susanoth, they'll dry up a little on the pan. Check that they'r cooked through before adding to the soup though

Curry Addict

thats a nice recipe mr magnolia.

"chilli in oil" paste instead of curry paste can be a nice alternative.

it can also be used to make tom yum gai and tom yum gum.


u can buy it in most asian shops. beware it is highly addictive

Faith

kingtut wrote: »

2) Do you know the calorie content?

Approximately 600 cals for a big bowl, 42g fat (coconut milk has a lot of fat!).

kingtut

Mr Magnolia wrote: »

Good to hear you're giving it a go. Don't know what the calorie count is I'm afraid. I'd recommend you stick to the recipe for the first outing though. It's already fairly spicy with the madras curry paste so a chilli in on top maybe too much. Perhpas you could reduce the sugar rather than eliminating it altogether? The sugar gives it a nice balance and is important in the final product.

It should freeze no problems though I haven't done it. The noodles may not be brilliant second time round but I'm sure they'd be fine. You could always make the soup, separate what you want to freeze and then add whatever noodles to soup about to be eaten. You'd just have to cook the noodles up per batch, no hassle really.

Thanks!
Doesn't the curry paste have a lot of sugar in it? I'm hoping for a spicy soup as opposed to a sweet one....ah feck it I'll stick to your recipe and then modify it for future batches if needs me. I'm excited about making this...is that sad?

Faith wrote: »

Approximately 600 cals for a big bowl, 42g fat (coconut milk has a lot of fat!).

Thanks, ye I always buy the reduced fat coconut milk

Malari

kingtut wrote: »

Thanks!
Doesn't the curry paste have a lot of sugar in it? I'm hoping for a spicy soup as opposed to a sweet one....ah feck it I'll stick to your recipe and then modify it for future batches if needs me. I'm excited about making this...is that sad?

I don't have any curry paste and was thinking of making my own. Not as difficult as it sounds! A recipe I found online that is supposed to be very like the Madras one is virtually all spices with no sugar. I don't know if they add sugar to the commercial ones.

As for being sad - no way Cooking new recipes is exciting. I can't wait to try this one but it'll be the weekend at least before I get around to it.

Jammy

Mmmmm nyum yum yum!

I will hopefully try this tommorow or Friday before I go away. Thanks for choosing such a yummy recipe!

John Mason

i am kinda scared of this one and will be stocking up on gaviscon and rennie before i tried it.:(

catho_monster

Malari wrote: »

I don't have any curry paste and was thinking of making my own. Not as difficult as it sounds! A recipe I found online that is supposed to be very like the Madras one is virtually all spices with no sugar. I don't know if they add sugar to the commercial ones.

As for being sad - no way Cooking new recipes is exciting. I can't wait to try this one but it'll be the weekend at least before I get around to it.

Can you post the recipe for the curry paste?

I can't eat garlic, and every curry paste I've come across has garlic in it.

I know this recipe won't be the same without it - either in it, or in the curry paste, but I'd like to give it a try anyway!

Curry Addict

kingtut wrote: »

Thanks, ye I always buy the reduced fat coconut milk

reduced fat coconut milk simply has more water content than the full fat version, so its basically a rip off

Malari

catho_monster wrote: »

Can you post the recipe for the curry paste?

I can't eat garlic, and every curry paste I've come across has garlic in it.

I know this recipe won't be the same without it - either in it, or in the curry paste, but I'd like to give it a try anyway!

Em, yep this one has garlic sorry! I would substitute something like shallots if you are intolerant. Maybe if it's deeply embedded in the paste though you wouldn't notice it? I haven't actually made up this paste myself yet, so can't comment on it's quality Makes about 400ml.

2 teaspoons (10ml) ground black pepper
1 tablespoon (15ml) chilli powder
1/2 teaspoon (2.5ml) ground cinnamon
2 teaspoons (10ml) garam masala
2 teaspoons (10ml) ground tumeric
8 tablespoons (120ml) ground coriander
2 teaspoons (10ml) black mustard seeds
1/4 cup (62ml) ground cumin
3 crushed cloves of garlic
2.5cm (1 inch) cube fresh ginger root, grated
1/2 cup (125ml) brown vinegar
5 tablespoons (75ml) vegetable oil

Method
Put all ingredients except for the vinegar and oil into a medium bowl
Mix well
Stir in the vinegar and mix to a smooth paste
Heat oil in medium saucepan
Stir in the mixture over low heat until mixture boils and oil begins to separate from the spices
Remove saucepan from heat and allow to cool
Store in airtight jar and add to curries as required

catho_monster

Thanks for that, I'll defo be trying that without the garlic! and no, hiding it doesn't help!

susanroth

Mr Magnolia wrote: »

I'd boil them for 20 minutes or so susanoth, they'll dry up a little on the pan. Check that they'r cooked through before adding to the soup though

YUM!!! I boiled the chicken breasts like you said and used the water for the soup. It was yummy, i never eat thai food and therefore would never have attempted to make anything like this but it was really easy and made a really nice change for me!:DThanks for the recipe Mr M;)
Like another poster said though next time i'll break up the noodles more as they are a pain in the behind to get out of the pot!

Faith

irishbird wrote: »

i am kinda scared of this one and will be stocking up on gaviscon and rennie before i tried it.:(

If you're hesitant about the spice, then use a milder curry paste like I did.

catho_monster wrote: »

I can't eat garlic, and every curry paste I've come across has garlic in it.

:eek:

I think I'd DIE if I couldn't eat garlic!