Thai Soup

Well, my long anticipated plans for the evening have been cancelled, leaving me with many long hours to fill by myself. So I'll finish my food blogging from the last few days. I made thai soup Monday night and shared with Mike and Tasia.

Check it:

Soak a package of rice noodles in warm water (enough to completely submerge the noodles) for 2 hours. Spice the water with salt, ginger, red pepper flakes, and whatever asian spices you have.

Dice and set aside:

Serrano peppers

Ref jalapenos or Red Fresno peppers

Green or Red thai chilis

as many peppers as your spice taste prefers. For a large pot I used 4 serranos and 3 Red Fresnos. The Thai chilis at Cub looked nasty so I skipped them this time.

On medium heat, sautee 3 large-ish shallots in 4 tablespoons veggie oil

when translucent, add peppers, garlic (3 ish cloves), salt, pepper

Add the zest and juice of a lime

cook down a few minutes and add:

8-10 oz. mushrooms--combination of cremini, button, and shitake are great.

3-4 carrots worth of shreddings, chopped so they aren't like carrot-noodles

cook down some more.

Add about have a package of bean sprouts (I never use a full package for anything, so if you can find them in bulk where you can buy just what you need, that's perfect. About a cup).

add three cans veggie stock

re-season as necessary (ginger, salt, pepper, garlic, red pepper flakes, chinese 5 spice, etc.)

toss in rice noodles and some of the noodle water

simmer until combined.

Garnish with cilantro and basil.

Other ideas: Thai soup and most asian dishes are famously versitile. I had lemon grass in this batch, though wasn't able to get it soft enough to be completely palatable. If you love lemon grass and can cook with it, add it! You can modify the type and amount of peppers, or any other vegetable for that matter. Bok choy or Napa cabbage shredded finely would be a nice addition as well. You could totally use fresh ginger root too, sliced extremely finely and diced. Add some soy sauce or try bean-thread noodles for a change, or for meat lovers, use pork, shrimp or chicken. The broth and noodles are really delicate and the citrus flavor of the lime (and optional lemongrass) really come through so you'll want a meat that pairs well--avoid beef.

The noodles break up after a day or so being stored in the fridge. Best if eaten within a 1-3 days of preparation.

That's what I have so far this week. I'm making butternut squash risotto tonight (a variation of Giada's recipe), I might post that. Otherwise, I'm out of cool food for the week. I'm not really working yet because my license is still in process so the food budget is really tight. Just so you know, though, the soup was right around $16.50 to make, not counting spices. So, that's around 8-10 bowls in the batch so that's somewhere between $1.60-2.06 per serving. I'm becoming a master at economical cooking.