Sunday, August 11, 2013

Thai Chicken Noodle Soup (Nigella)

I had a bad sore-throat a few weeks ago, and have been staying away from spicy food. So much so, that I was craving for a bowl of curry laksa, one of our local noodles with rich coconut broth, spicy and delicious, especially with the side condiment of sambal belacan and a squeeze of lime. Of course I would be torturing my throat if I have that, so I'll just settle for this mild noddle soup, recipe from Nigella Kitchen.

This noddle soup was made a few weeks ago, for lunch, and the kids were both happy when they were served with this bowl of noddle soup when they were back from school.


Nigella uses chicken stock for this, and those of us who are staying over here in Malaysia would know how difficult it is to get ready-packed chicken stock, which can only be found in Cold Storage, Village Grocer, the supermarkets that carry mostly imported food items. I have not made any chicken stock ever since my homemade chicken stock went down to zero. Gotta get my lazy butt going for another round of chicken stock soon! Well, as soon as I clear my almost full freezer!!! 

Since this recipe uses cooked shredded chicken, I have boiled a large piece of chicken breast and used the stock for the soup, which I have added in another 2 teaspoons of chicken stock powder.
The chicken breast is then shredded to pieces. This dish is really simple, for the soup, it only uses chicken stock, turmeric powder, fish sauce, sugar and tamarind paste. I have omitted the lime juice since the taste is just right with the tamarind paste. You may however squeeze the lime juice over your own bowl of noodles, as we Malaysians love to do that! :)

I have used glass noodles (tung fun) for this dish. Instead of cooking the noodles in the soup, I have soaked the glass noodles until softened and boiled briefly in salted boiling water. Glass noodles cooks rather fast, just place them in the boiling water for a minute, drain and divide into serving bowls, with the hot soup poured over just before serving. 


Do not expect this bowl of noodle dish to be chock-full of spices and spicy flavour, like the ones we are used to in Malaysia, this is rather mild, what we would call "masak lemak" without the usage of chillies. Overall, I'm very happy with this bowl of noodles, especially the kids, they love it, mild enough for them to enjoy and very tasty too. Though I would advise to add on some prawns and fishballs like I did! I would not mind cooking this again, though the next time, I'll make some sambal belachan (a chili condiment paste) to go along with it, with a squeeze of lime! Enjoy!


Thai Chicken Noodle Soup
(adapted from "Nigella Kitchen", Nigella Lawson)
1 quart chicken broth
6 ounces thin rice noodles or glass or cellophane noodles (made from mung beans)
scant 1 cup coconut milk
1x1-1/2 inch piece fresh gingerroot, peeled and sliced thinly, then cut into skinny strips
2 tablespoons fish sauce
1 fresh red or green chile, seeded and cut into strips
1 teaspoon turmeric powder
1 teaspoon tamarind paste
1 teaspoon light brown sugar
2 tablespoons lime juice
2 cups cooked shredded chicken
8 ounces tender-shoot, stir-fry, or other assorted vegetables
2-3 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro, to serve

Put the chicken broth in a good-sized saucepan to heat up.
Put the noodles in a bowl and pour boiling water over or cook following the instructions on the package.
Add the remaining ingredients, except the vegetables, to the pan and bring to a boil.
When the chicken is piping hot, add the vegetables and when they are tender - a minute or two should be plenty if you're using the tender shoots - add the drained noodles. Or simply divide the noodles between bowls and pour the soup over them.
Serve sprinkled with chopped fresh cilantro.

#74/100

I'm linking this post to Cook Like A Star, where the featured chef for this month is NIGELLA LAWSON. Cook Like A Star is an event organized by Zoe from Bake For Happy Kids, and the co-hosts for this month are Anuja from Simple Baking and me, Joyce from Kitchen Flavours. Cook or bake any of Nigella Lawson's recipes and link your posts to any of the hosts' linky which will stay open for the whole month of August. All submissions to this event must be current posts, published within the current month of this event, any older posts will be deleted. Please mention and link Cook Like A Star somewhere in your post. Do join us, everyone is welcome!



Cook Like A Star featuring Nigella Lawson, from 1st August to 31st August 2013

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19 comments:

  1. Hi Joyce! I didn't know that chicken stock is difficult to get in M'sia.... But it's definitely better if you could make your own stock.

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  2. Hi Joyce I love Nigella and all herbrecipes, this elook delicious:)

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  3. Hi Joyce, I like this bowl of glass noodles, can imaging how good it is to go with homemade chicken stock!

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  4. Hi Joyce,

    Didn't notice that you have open the Cook-your-book #3 linky now... Will link up my post now.

    Seeing your post makes me extremely guilty!!! - I'm always too lazy to make my own chicken stock and use the store-bought ones :p

    Hope that your throat has fully recovered.

    Zoe

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  5. Hi Joyce! I believe I have seen Nigella cooking this dish on TV. It looked to mild for me hah! hah! But I know I would love it with a good dose of sambal belacan :)

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  6. Looks delicious and simple enough to cook...probably not as fragrant as what we have here but good enough huh!

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  7. Hi Joyce, I am quite surprised that its not easy to find chicken stock in Malaysia. Because its found everywhere in Singapore... I wonder why? Your noodle dish looks delicious!

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  8. Very wonderful & creative soup.. Loved it... Do visit my blog.. http://kitchenserenity.blogspot.in/

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  9. It's been a long time since I eat tung fun, your Thai Chicken soup with tung fun makes me drooling!

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  10. Joyce , you mean those chicken stock in tetra pack or in can are hard to come by in your neck of the woods ?! That just sad ;D Homemade stock taste way better anyway , eventhough making it is a tad time-consuming ..... Your Thai-style noodles sure looks scrumptious ! I love everything in there :D

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  11. I can imagine the sour taste of the soup and I love this! By the way, may I link my post posted on 10 of this month to the Cook Your Book event because I post it before the link is made available?

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  12. i got so hungry looking at this i had to go grab dinner immediately

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  13. Hi Joyce,
    The prawns and tunghoon looks so appetising in the yellow broth !

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  14. Hi Joyce!

    I really love the ingredients in this soup. so much so that I am going to make a list of the ingredients and pick them up the next time I go shopping. so sorry it is difficult to get chicken stock by you but as many have said, home made is simple and tastier. (not to mention healthy too:)

    I think that it is quite interesting that in our family, when some one is not feeling well, we too nourish the body with chicken soup:) However, when making it for an everyday dish, I like to spice it up a bit too:) I would love to try your soup with Matzoh Balls. (do you have Matzoh meal by you?)

    Thank you so much for sharing, Joyce. I'm hoping to post for Cook the Books on Wednesday. Fingers crossed:)

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    1. Hi Louise,
      Yes, this soup is rather mild, but very tasty. And we do not have Matzoh Balls over here, not that I know of! I have seen some recipes from some blogs though, and only learn of these Matzoh Balls.
      Looking forward to your post on Wednesday.

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  15. Mild ? i think i also ' ngam' for the time being cos i've been sick too for the past few days and still having cough here

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  16. I like squeezing lime or lemon in soup right before serving. It really wakes up the whole bowl. Thank you for linking this week, Joyce!

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  17. Usually I just make a quick stock by boiling some chicken breast with onions and carrots. My freezer is also way too full!

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  18. This looks like the perfect thing to soothe and make you feel better. Loving all those noodles. ;-) Thanks for sharing it with Souper Sundays this week.

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