My favourite grocery store in Hamilton is a place named Nations.  It’s a Chinese grocery chain, but as the name suggests, it has a pretty wide variety of international foods and a huge ready made food section.  Almost every time we go there, my wife picks up a cup of their Thai Coconut Curry soup.  It’s a fantastic soup – spicy, flavourful, and creamy.  I was already going to be making some stock, so I decided to try making this.

Soup is always better with a homemade stock, and I recently made some Turducken rolls, so I had a pile of meat trimmings and bones around which got made into about 3 litres of delicious poultry stock.  After cooling it in the fridge, all of the fat solidified on the top and was easily scraped away, leaving a really gelatinous tasty stock.

I’ve never made this type of soup before, but I had a general idea of what went into it.  I checked out a few recipes for reference, then pieced together this recipe using what I had on hand.  I thought it turned out great – I don’t usually make soup a lot, but I’m going to do it more often, especially now that it’s getting cold out.

INGREDIENTS:

• 2 tablespoons cooking oil
• 1 tablespoon chopped garlic
• 3 tablespoons grated ginger
• 2 tablespoons Thai red curry paste
• 2 stalks of lemongrass, cut into 3-4 inch pieces and bruised (hit it with the back of a knife a bunch of times to help release flavour)
• 8 cups chicken broth
• 8 cups coconut milk
• 4 tablespoons fish sauce
• 2 tablespoons white sugar
• 2 cups cooked chicken meat or whatever you have handy (I used a mix of chicken, duck, and poultry from when I made the stock)
• 1 package of rice noodles
• 3 cups mixed sliced mushrooms (I used a mix of shitakes and straw mushrooms)
• lime juice
• cilantro for garnish

INSTRUCTIONS:

1. In a pot large enough to hold everything, warm oil over medium heat
2. Cook the lemongrass, ginger, and garlic for a couple of minutes
3. Add the chicken stock, fish sauce, and sugar
4. Simmer for 15-20 minutes
5. Prepare rice noodles as directed on package
6. Add coconut milk, chicken, and mushrooms
7. Simmer for another 5-10 minutes

Serve by adding some noodles to a bowl, then ladling the soup over top.  Top with a squeeze of fresh lime juice and some chopped cilantro.