Virtuous soup

Soup is great for a starter or for a light lunch but there was a time that I wouldn’t dream of having soup for my dinner. That was until I discovered the wonders of Asian soups. These soups are full of all sorts of delicious goodies like prawns, crisp vegetables and noodles. It really is a full meal, swimming around in a tasty broth.

A combination of factors helped to turn my mind to having soup for dinner. Firstly the temperature has dropped a few degrees and I have become a weather wuss since I moved to Sydney. People are constantly asking me why I’m not able for the cold weather since I lived in Ireland for the first 25 years of my life. Well, I guess I was just always super cold when I lived in Ireland and hence I moved to nice warm Australia. It only gets really cold here for a few weeks every year and that's when I turn to the comfort of hot soup.

The second reason I wanted to have soup for dinner was that recently we have had a number of excellent, very rich meals. I needed something light and tasty to balance all the food I have eaten recently.

J is generally not a big fan of soup but once you put a few prawns in there he gets so distracted by his favourite ingredient that he forgets he is even having soup.

This soup comes from Delicious magazine and was hot in both temperature and in flavour. It was the perfect dinner for a cold Sunday night. J was very disappointed when he went fishing in the soup for some wontons and couldn’t find any. I’ve been making long & short soup recently with noodles, wantons and prawns and it is a favourite of J’s. I’ll have to throw a few wantons in next time to save myself from a disappointed dinner partner.


Hot & Sour prawn soup

2 cups (500mL) chicken stock
2 kaffir lime leaves
2 small red chillies, seeds removed, finely chopped
3cm-piece ginger, peeled, thinly sliced
2 tbs fish sauce
1 tbs tamarind paste
200g glass (bean thread) noodles or rice vermicelli
150g green beans or snake beans, trimmed, cut into 3cm lengths
12 cherry tomatoes, halved
16 large green king prawns, peeled, de-veined
Coriander sprigs and lime cheeks (optional), to serve

Place the stock, kaffir lime leaves, chilli, ginger, fish sauce, tamarind paste and 2 cups (500mL) water in a large heavy-based saucepan, and bring to the boil over high heat. Reduce heat to medium-low and simmer for 5 minutes.

Meanwhile, place the glass noodles or vermicelli in a large heatproof bowl and pour over enough boiling water to cover. Set aside for 3 minutes to soften, then rinse and drain well and divide among serving bowls.

Add the green or snake beans to the soup and simmer for a further 2 minutes. Add the tomatoes and prawns, remove from the heat. Stand for 1 minute until prawns are just cooked, then ladle soup over the noodles and garnish with coriander sprigs. Serve immediately, with lime cheeks if desired.