Keep Cookin'

This is one of the most refreshing soups I have had the pleasure of tasting – it is absolutely fantastic and bursting with flavour and incredibly easy to make. What is really great about this is that it takes about 10 minutes to prepare and 5-or-so to cook, so is ideal for a quick meal during a busy week and is full of fresh ingredients, so very good for you to boot.

I chose to make this soup using meaty fish, which won’t flake during cooking and opted for Monkfish; you can use any other derivative, chicken or even tofu if you fancy it, although I haven’t tried this yet.

Ok, so here’s the ingredients and as with any recipe, these are just suggestions so feel free to use your gastronomic-artistic license to experiment!

• Monkfish (amount of which depends on how much you wish to eat, or spend!)
• 1 Onion, cut into bite-sized pieces
• 1 Large tomato, cut into bite-sized pieces
• Approx. 30g of mushrooms, cut into bite-sized pieces*
• 1 Tablespoon of galangal, thinly sliced
• 1 Tablespoon of lemon grass, thinly sliced
• 2 Kaffir lime leaves, rolled and cut into small slices
• 2 Spring onions, sliced into approx. 1 inch pieces
• Fish or chicken stock (you can get good quality, pre-made in the shops, approx. 400-500ml)

*For authenticity, I purchased some Thai mushrooms which look like ears(!) from the local Thai supermarket. Ok, so they don’t look the most appertising, but they do taste good

Place the following in to a bowl and stir to make a sauce:

• 2 Tablespoons of lime juice
• 2 Tablespoons of fish sauce
• Between 1 and 15 dried chillies cut into small pieces (depending on how hot you like it, I use about 4 or 5 and it’s hot!)
• 1/2 Tablespoon of sugar (palm or brown)

Ok, th fun bit:

1. Place the stock into a pan with the lemongrass and galangal and boil for a couple of minutes – this will start and infuse the stock with those fresh flavours
2. Add the monkfish and this will start to cook pretty quickly
3. Once the monkfish has changed colour, add the onion and mushrooms and cook until bubbles start to appear in the middle of the pan – do not stir at this stage as you will lengthen the time prior to boiling and leave the vegetables over-cooked
4. Now add the sauce you prepared earlier
5. Now add the tomato
6. Turn off the heat, add the kaffir lime leaves, spring onion and serve immediately
7. Enjoy!