My Most Favourite Spicy Soup ©

6 Persons

Ingredients

1 Chicken

6 Large carrots peeled and quartered

4  Large onions, quartered

4-8  Cloves garlic, peeled and left whole

3 Lemon- grass stalks, cleaned and sliced in half, long ways

1 inch piece of ginger grated

2 Bay leaves ( Opt)

2 red  chili whole, or de-seeded for less heat

Small bunch coriander, mainly stalks

2 Lime leaves, fresh or dried, if available

1 tsp brown sugar

6 Black Pepper corns

Garnish

 1 -2 limes, juice and zest finely grated to be added just before serving

Coriander leaves for decoration

4 Button mushrooms halved

6  Fresh whole Lychees, stones removed (or tinned)

1  Small carrot cut into ‘ Julienne ‘

Knob of butter

salt

Method

Gather all your ingredients together first.

1. Wash chicken thoroughly under running water. Remove any extra fat inside cavity, liver, heart, neck and place in a large saucepan together with vegetables. Add water to come up to 3/4 of the way up your ingredients, (see photo. Too much water will not give a strong tasting soup.) Add 2 tsp salt and bring to a simmer. Cook with lid on for 1 hr, (mark 1) or until chicken breaks away easily from bones. Turn over half way through cooking time. ( Do not be tempted to add extra water, or the stock will not be concentrated enough and will lack flavor.)

2. Remove chicken with two slotted spoons,  (Skin and de- bone and reserve  for Coronation Chicken recipe, see Index.) Remove lemon grass stalks, lime leaves, bay leaves and pepper corns. Pass liquid through sieve and place remaining vegetables in blender, including  the chili and ginger. Blend until silky smooth. 3-5 minutes.

3. Return vegetable purée and liquid to clean saucepan, add carrots cut into fine match-stick sized julienne, mushrooms, if large cut in half. Re-heat and simmer for two minutes. Take off heat add lime juice and very finely grated lime zest just before serving. No earlier or the zest goes brown. Taste for seasoning and serve piping hot .

4. Serve in warmed individual bowls, garnished with fresh coriander leaves and a lychee in each bowl!

N.B. In this recipe, you shouldn’t replace the lime with lemon, because the flavor of the zest is totally different.

If you want your soup less hot, add less chili. A little does enhance the other flavors.

******Cook’s Tip !   Always taste before serving two or three times, to get the perfect flavor! Just the right amount of salt, is what is needed at this stage.

Note I have not given an exact amount of water to be added, because it depend on the size of your chicken and vegetables. It is better to add less water than more. later if it is too thick, you can dilute it a very little with water.