Vietnamese Hot and Sour Prawn Noodle Soup

This soup is has the holy trinity of chilli, garlic and ginger, as well as lime juice, fish sauce and lemon grass, mint and coriander. All in all, a really fragrant and spicy soup. I call this my Asian Wellness Soup, as it’s just so, so healthy. It keeps away the sniffles and coughs and also helps the body recover if the sniffles and coughs do hit.

To make a proper supper out of this you could add some thinly sliced lean pork or turkey or chicken breast, but here I'm trying to keep it as low fat as possible, so I'm adding some prawns.

This soup  reminds me of my favourite country Vietnam. In most guesthouses on our travels their breakfast choices were limited, the choice was French bread roll with a plain omelette, or noodle soup. I went for noodle soup every time! They never make their food too spicy, they prefer to serve soy sauce and chili sauce on the side for you to add yourself according to your own taste. Here I usually sneak a dash of sweet chili sauce.What a delicious way to start the day, especially if one wants to keep clear of bread, and keep the taste buds tingling until lunch time.

Serves 2

Ingredients

·         100g of defrosted frozen prawns

·         1 organic chicken stock cube

·         100g of rice noodles

·         1 carrot, shaved with vegetable peeler

·         2 tsbp of chopped mint

·         2 tbsp of chopped coriander

·         1 garlic clove grated

·         ½ a deseeded red chilli, diced finely

·         1 inch size piece of ginger, peeled and grated

·         1 tbsp of brown sugar

·         Juice of 1 lime

·         1 piece of lemongrass, bruised, chopped finely

·         2 tomatoes, chopped.

·         2 lime leaves, chopped

·         1 green pepper, sliced thinly

·         Handful of spinach leaves

·         ½ tbsp of cumin powder

Method

1.       Get all your ingredients prepped. Then to a pan, add the garlic, chilli, ginger, tomatoes, lemongrass, cumin with some a few sprays of low cal spray for approx 5 minutes on a medium heat.

2.       Add the stock cube to 500ml of boiling water and add to the pan.

3.       Add the noodles and simmer for 5 minutes.

4.       Add the sugar, fish sauce and lime juice.

5.       Add the defrosted prawns and carrot strips and simmer until they are warmed through.

6.       Finish with the chopped mint and coriander.

7.       Serve with a soup spoon and chopsticks.