Tuesday, January 5, 2010

Thai Coconut Curry Soup

(photo by: Antonis Achilleos for Bon Appetit)

I found this recipe in a picture-less little black and white booklet sent out by Bon Appetit magazine as a thank you for ordering their magazine. Well, there was one picture. It was on the front. And it was this soup. (Side note: If you are a food magazine editor, or you ever become one, here's my request of you--always, always, always include a picture of every recipe! In my experience, if it doesn't have a picture, I don't try it. It's too hard to imagine how yummy it might be with just a list of ingredients. Just sayin'.)

So out of that booklet of 50 or so recipes, this is probably the only one I will try because the picture sold it before I ever saw the ingredient list. It looked like it might be coconut milk based, and I saw that little lime wedge. I love coconut and lime together. So I found what page the recipe was on and decided to give it a try. The list is loooooong, but it's not hard.
And it tasted just how I'd hoped it would. If I had this in a restaurant, I would be completely satisfied! So thanks Bon Appetit for this picture at least!

Thai Coconut Curry Soup
adapted from Bon Appetit

2 T oil
3 T chopped onion
3 garlic cloves, chopped
2 T minced lemongrass
2 T minced fresh ginger
2 T Thai yellow curry paste
2 T curry powder
1 t hot chili paste
2 cans coconut milk
5 c chicken broth
2.5 T fish sauce
2 t sugar
3 c snow peas
1 sweet potato, cubed
1 lb rice vermicelli noodles
3/4 lb skinless, boneless chicken thighs, thinly sliced
1/2 c red onion, thinly sliced
1/4 c green onion, thinly sliced
1/4 c cilantro
3 red Thai bird chiles, thinly sliced
1 lime, cut into wedges

Heat oil in large pot over medium high heat.
Add onion, garlic, lemongrass, and ginger. Stir until fragrant, about 1 min.
Reduce heat to low and add curry paste, curry powder, and chili paste.
Add 1/2 c of the coconut milk and stir for 2 min.
Add remaining coconut milk, broth, fish sauce, and sugar. Bring to a boil.
Add sweet potato and chicken.
In a separate pot, bring some water to a boil and add rice noddles. Cook until done, about 5-7 min. Drain.
Add snow peas to the pot with the chicken and cook until heated through.
Divide noodles among serving bowls. Cut with scissors if too long.
Pour hot soup over noodles.
Garnish with red onion, cilantro, green onion, chiles, and lime wedge.


5 comments:

Christina said...

That sounds SO yummy! Where do you get yellow curry paste and chili paste? I'd like to try this, and I've seen most of these ingredients, but I'm not familiar with those. Hopefully I can find them in our limited Montana stores. : )

Btw, I'm totally with you on photos to go with recipes.

Mom Judy said...

Wow, Heidi, I thought you took the picture at first. The picture does make you want to make it, so you can eat it.

Heidi said...

Christina, I actually couldn't find the yellow curry paste, but I had some green on hand. It is made by Thai Kitchen. And it has lemongrass and lime leaves in it, so I thought it would work just as well.

Here's a link to their product:

http://www.worldpantry.com/cgi-bin/ncommerce3/ProductDisplay?prmenbr=1279010&prrfnbr=1351142

The chili paste is also called sambal oelek. (You could google that to see a picture.)
Since the kids were eating this with us, I skipped the chili paste and me and my husband added red pepper flakes to ours, but you could add any hot sauce or your stores should have a small can of chipotle peppers in adobo sauce. You could add a little of that.

Brea said...

You make me laugh... but that's not anything new. I'm very impressed with this picture too. I'm sure yours looked just like this. It looks so delish. So much so, that I'm considering making it. That's right, considering it. I'm a little nervous about the length of the recipe and the timeframe it will take, but you said it's not as long as it seems. I think I'll have to select a day when I'm off from work to try it. Oh, and Nola wants to know if Addie got her letter. We miss you guys!

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