thai chicken noodle soup.

the weather is cold and dreary, i'm hitting the procrast button hard and all i desire are warm bowls of comfort followed by long stretches of slumber. my problem is i almost always stick to the same repertoire of food stuffs, in the fall/winter its always chicken noodle soup, turkey corn chili, lasagna, etc. i decided to break the mold a bit and go for something outside of my comfort zone. thai chicken noodle soup. i found a recipe on martha that turned out to be a great template with easy instructions and even less waiting for results. exactly my way to cook.

martha's recipe can be found here.

first begin by sauteeing 2 chicken breasts in a flavorless oil (i used canola) and sprinking with salt and pepper. these cooked up in about 6 minutes per side. remove and shred with the two fork method i used to make chicken salad.
next boil up one of those big juice box size containers of chicken stock ( i think its about 30 oz or so).
while this boils, you can prepare some of your other ingredients. first about a three inch piece of ginger.
which you can peel and then grate with your microplane. try not to spaz out and cut your finger mid-peel how i did:) thanks for the help with the band aid dear!
then lemongrass. you will also need about a three inch piece, which you should chop as finely as you can.
and scallions, three of them, chopped finely as well.
and a red chili, seed and dice.
and then your porcini mushrooms of course, this is about 6 ounces.
so now to your boiling chicken stock add: the ginger, lemongrass, scallions, red chili pepper and porcini mushrooms.
and now you want to spice it up:
add 1 teaspoon of curry powder and 1/2 teaspoon of cumin to the broth before adding the most important ingredient.
2 tablespoons of fish sauce. this stuff is powerful. martha's recipe only called for 1 tablespoon but i'm a rebel and i love fish sauce, so i went for 2 tabelspoons.
give the pot of stock and ingredients a good stir and lower the heat to medium-low and let simmer for a good 20 mintues or so.
while this simmers, you'll need to gather yet more ingredients. this soup is heavy on the ingredietns list but short on actual work. trust me. so worth it.
ok so while the soup simmers, set aside about 1/2 cup of bean sprouts.

grate and thinly chop up 1 carrot.
then gather your cilantro, mint and lime. juice half the lime and save the other half for later. roughly chop up about 1 cup of cilantro leaves.

once the soup has simmered about 20 minutes or so, stir in your 1/2 cup of bean sprouts, carrot slices, juice of half a lime and the cup of cilantro.
i also decided to add 2 soy sauce packets i had laying around in the fridge from some chinese a few weeks back.
let the soup simmer about another 10 minutes and then add in 1 brick of ramen noodles. the noodles were a last minute addition when nelson gave the most pitiful face when i announced the soup didn't have noodles.
next time i'll get some udon noodles, but in all honesty these worked out just great. added to the soup, they only took about 5 minutes to soften up.
while the ramen cooks through, chop up a bit more cilantro, chop that half lime from earlier into slices and rip some mint leaves. all will be nice additions to your thai chicken noodle soup.
i thought of just having nelson and i eat this out of the same bowl, a la lady and the tramp but thought better of it since we had guests coming over who ended up wanting some soup as well. good thing i put rational before cheesy romance times.

this soup was like no other i ever had. although i think it may slightly resemble pho soup, a soup which i really thought i hated with a passion. i think perhaps i just hated the beef kind because you cook the raw meat in the broth which always always grossed me out beyond belief. but this isn't anything what i remember pho to be, but perhaps my memory is going. its hearty and filling without being greasy and heavy, it has a very interesting balance of spices and packs some heat because of the red chili pepper and the 1/4 teaspoon of red pepper flake that i forgot to mention i added.

we were so satisfied with this, that i'm going to make it again tomorrow for my parents visit along with some tofu spring rolls, thai spicy nuts and mango sticky rice. along with tsingtao beer of course. go thai night!

*note: i also added about 3 cups of water while cooking*