This bowl of Thai kway teow soup is to die for. I was actually not expecting it to turn out to be anything special or fantastic, just a simple, homecooked pot of stock with kway teow, that’s all. But when I saw how the bowls were emptied out at the dining table very quickly, I was secretly pleased. This simple bowl of noodles proved to be much more than it looks to be.
The secret, of course, is in the way the stock was made. It uses lime juice as the base, and then the rest including the chicken bones, lemongrass and parsley are added to add to the umami. You don’t need more ingredients than what you see here. You let the stock speak for itself.
Nice. It’s really nice and addictive. You don’t need to go to Thailand to eat it. Try this at home today!
Ingredients:
- Chicken breast: 2 fillets, halved
- Small lime: 20, halved
- Water: 2 cups + 2 litres
- Chicken bone: 6 pieces
- Lemongrass: 8 stalks, bruised
- Parsley: 2 bunches, stalks and leaves separated
- Chilli padi: 2 whole, seeds removed (if required to lower the spice level) + extra for serving
- Fish sauce: 6 tbsp
- Thai chilli sauce: 8 tbsp
- Kway teow: 2 kg
- Bean sprout: 500g
- Fried shallot: for garnish
Method:
- Cook chicken breast in water for 20min. Remove, cool, shred ans set aside.
- Place limes in pot with enough water (about 2 cups) to cover them. Boil till they float up to the surface.
- Remove skins from water, squeeze out remaining juice into the pot before discarding. This will give you about 1 soup bowl of diluted lime juice.
- Add chicken bone, lemongrass, parsley stalks, chilli padi, cooked lime juice, fish sauce, Thai chilli sauce to 2 litres water in a separate pot. Bring to a boil.
- Blanch kway teow in stock. Scoop into 6 serving bowls.
- Blanch bean sprouts. Scoop into serving bowls on top of kway teow.
- Scoop stock into bowls. Top with shredded chicken.
- Garnish with parsley leaves, fried shallot and chilli padi to serve.
Trick:
- You can leave the chilli padi and Thai chilli sauce out altogether and serve them on the side if there’s anyone at home who doesn’t eat spicy food.
Serving:
6 persons