Thai Coconut Curry Soup

It's been a while! I had a little side job blogging recipes for another blogger for the last several months and that kind of sucked up my will to blog. I stopped blogging for her at the end of last year, and now (three months later), I am ready get my toe back in the blogging world. Though I am not entirely sure why as pinterest has completely obliterated any reason at all to have a recipe blog. Well, except I kind of take comfort that if I die or something my kids and husband will have a log of all the recipes I loved. So...there's that I suppose.

Anyway, I made this soup for dinner last night and it knocked my socks off. I will definitely be serving this the next time we have people over for dinner. I can't believe I went the first 28 years of my life thinking I didn't like Thai food. Idiot.

Thai Coconut Curry Soup
by www.sweetspot.ca
The sweet, sour, spicy, salty and savoury flavours of Thailand are one of my favourite ways to fill a bowl. They’re seductively addictive, always well balanced and one of the world’s great cuisines. They’re also easy! This is a very simple dish to make.

Ingredients
Two 14 oz cans of premium coconut milk ( I translate premium to mean FULL fat)
1 heaping tablespoon of Thai curry paste (I used red)
Roots of 1 bunch of cilantro, rinsed well
2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts, thinly sliced
2 cups of chicken broth
1 carrot, shredded
4 or 5 lime leaves (what the...?)
2 stalks of lemon grass, halved lengthwise, woody leaves removed ( used 2 TBS lemongrass from a little tube I found near the fresh Basil at Smiths)
2 tablespoons of fish sauce
Zest and juice of 2 limes
A small knob of frozen ginger
A handful of bean sprouts
One 8 oz (225 g) package of rice noodles ( could easily use cooked rice instead)
Leaves of 1 bunch of cilantro, rinsed well
2 or 3 green onions, thinly sliced
A sprinkle or two of salt or soy sauce

Directions
1. Scoop the thick coconut cream from the top of just one of the cans into a large stockpot set over a medium-high heat. Melt the cream, add the curry paste and stir for a few minutes until they begin to sizzle.

2. Add the cilantro roots and chicken and sauté until the chicken is cooked through, about 5 minutes.

3. Add the coconut juice from the first can and all the contents of the second can along with the chicken broth, carrot, lime leaves, lemon grass, fish sauce and lime zest and juice. Grate the frozen ginger into the broth with a Microplane grater or standard box grater. Simmer for 20 minutes or so.

4. Stir in the bean sprouts. Add the rice noodles, gently pushing them beneath the surface of the broth. Turn off the heat and let stand until the noodles soften, about 5 minutes. Rice noodles don’t need to simmer like pasta to cook; they simply need to rehydrate in the hot liquid.

5. Stir in most of the cilantro leaves. Remove the lemon grass stalks. Taste and season with a touch more salt (or soy sauce) as needed. Ladle into large bowls and garnish with the green onions and remaining cilantro leaves.

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This recipe sat on my menu rotation for weeks because I didn't know where to buy things like lime leaves and lemongrass. But let me assure you, you can modify it to make it less intimidating. For example I found lemongrass in a little squirt tube at smiths (on clearance!), and I used additional lime zest and juice instead of lime leaves.

Also, if I were to do this recipe again I would skip the expensive rice pasta (like three dollars and something a box!) and just simply add rice to the soup. I did spend the big bucks and bought red curry paste and fish sauce but really they were pretty cheap and I will be able to use them in several more recipes. I hope you enjoy this one as much as I did!