January 5, 2011
Having spent the past two weeks in and around Nashville, Tennessee, I was ready for some Asian flavor back in my diet. An organized trip to two grocery stores later (the first, Albertson’s, provided the produce and soup basics while the second more up-scale market, Gelson’s, was key for the all natural, preservative free chicken) I was chopping, slicing and julienne-ing my way to a deliciously spicy soup.
This soup took me under an hour to complete, but could likely be done in around 40 minutes if you’re working in what I call “storm mode.” (That’s when Troy works at such a fast pace that it feels like a storm has come through. The risk here is that you’re using a knife and mandolin for the fine slicing and a storm coming through with kitchen tools this sharp just isn’t worth it to me. He can keep his 20 minutes and I’ll keep all my fingertips)
A few tips I’ll add to make this dish even tastier are as follows:
1. Use ONLY 2 medium carrots (maybe even less). I used 3 small-medium carrots and it was more than enough. The carrot flavor was so strong that it took away from the delicate coconut and lemongrass flavors.
2. Use less than a whole celery head. Since the soup was stewed in chicken broth it gave it too much of a plain old chicken soup taste and again, it seemed like the coconut and lemongrass flavors were somewhat lost.
3. Use either regular coconut milk or double (at least) the serving if you’re using lite coconut milk.
4. Rather than using all of both chili peppers in the soup, save a quarter of the chopped pepper to garnish once the soup has been served. If you like chili spice, it will add a fresh, green chili taste to the finished product.
5. Add a squeeze of lime in addition to the lemon at the end before serving.
6. If you like basil (I LOVE basil) you can use more than the ¼ cup called for in the recipe. The flavor is fantastic when you have a wilted basil leaf on your spoon.
All in all, a great soup, fairly quick and easy with room for personalized adjustments!
