Hot & Sour Chicken Vermicelli Broth

The only draw back with Oriental grocers is that everything comes in such large bags that you end up with loads of leftover greens and beansprouts and have to eat the same style of food three days in a row. Oh, well.

You should try this broth, it makes you feel good.

Serves 4
1/2 small chicken or 2 whole legs, skinned
1 onion, roughly chopped
2 garlic cloves, quartered
piece root ginger, peeled and roughly chopped
4 kaffir lime leaves, crumpled and/or a lemongrass stalk, flattened
100g vermicelli rice or egg noodles
1 tbsp good Thai red curry paste (please don’t use Barts)
bundle of choi sum or a few heads of bok choi
200g beansprouts
75g sliced bamboo shoots, rinsed, soaked and drained
2 tsp light muscovado sugar
1 tbsp fish sauce
1 - 2 lemons
2 spring onion, thinly sliced
2 red chillies, thinly sliced
handful fresh coriander leaves

Place the chicken, 1.5 – 2 litres of water, the onion, garlic, ginger, lime leaves or lemongrass in a large pan and add a little salt. Bring to the boil then simmer very gently for 30 minutes until the chicken is cooked through
Strain the stock into a clean pan. Place the chicken on a board until cool enough to handle then shred the meat off the bones.

Cook the noodles according to packet instructions then drain and divide between bowls – don’t worry about them going cold as the hot broth will soon warm them back up.

Stir the curry paste into the stock and bring back to the boil. Add the greens and cook for a moment then stir in the shredded chicken, beansprouts, bamboo shoots, sugar and fish sauce and simmer for 1 minute.

Squeeze in the lemon juice to taste. Ladle the hot broth over the noodles then scatter over the spring onion, chillies and coriander leaves. Eat.