thai green curry coconut broth with homemade noodles

… i’m trying to change up our diet a little bit from a summer of salads and cake, it all gets a little bit repetitive doesn’t it, and rather than going straight into autumnal stews and pies I thought i’d turn my hand to something a little more adventurous – for me anyway – but just as warming.  I’m crazy for noodles at the moment, there’s such a massive plethora of wonderful asian restaurants in London and noodles are everywhere from hand-pulled chinese noodle bars to aromatic vietnamese Pho.  The Viking loves a fat udon whilst I like the stylish and sleek thai glass rice noodle… but of course the one thing i’ve never done is make my own… i’ve never made any kind of pasta before, always believing you needed one of those clever pasta machines and seeing that The Viking has banned me from getting any more kitchen gadgets for a while I just never got around to trying to make pasta…

… then, whilst surfing the inter-web thingy the other day I came across this rather basic video on the Easy Chinese Food youtube channel for making chinese noodles (i’m now obsessed with all these amazing videos..) and was astounded to see how easy it looked.  Ever vigilant, I read the comments before I started (don’t bother, jet follow the video) and i’ve got to say, not only where they a breeze to make but they tasted beautiful and complimented the soup beautifully… I was a little impressed with myself by the end of the day…

thai green curry coconut broth with homemade noodles
ok, so i’m mixing asian cultures here but i’m sure you’ll forgive me… I adore a spicy coconut soup and I have made one before but not with my own noodles… the base is a basic thai green curry paste which is also beyond easy to make and then to make the soup it’s then a matter of choosing the vegetables you like and throwing it all together… i’ve boiled the noodles in separate water and added them to the bowls at the end as I think this is the done thing.

enough soup for 4 hungry people

for the noodles
3 cups of strong bread flour
3/4 cup of water (I used about 2 tablespoons more)

for the thai green curry paste 
(makes enough to prepare the soup 4 times and will last in the fridge for 2 weeks)
4 medium green chillies – de-seeded and roughly chopped
1 small onion – roughly chopped
a thumb-sized piece of fresh ginger – peeled and chopped
2 cloves of garlic – peeled
a large bunch of fresh coriander with stalks
2 lemongrass stalks
the juice and zest of one lime
7 or 8 kaffir lime leaves
a thumbs sized piece of galangal
1 tsp corriander seeds
1 tsp ground cumin
2 tsp light soy sauce
3 tblsp olive oil

for the broth
a bunch of large salad onions or spring onions – roughly sliced
2 large flat mushrooms – thickly sliced
1 tablespoon sesame oil
1 tablespoon flavourless
vegetable oil2 400ml tins of coconut milk
2 pints of good quality vegetable stock or miso stock
100g peas (fresh or frozen)
100g sugar snap peas
3 mini or 1 large pak choi
a large bunch of fresh coriander
a large bunch of fresh thai basil (if you can find, if not, don’t worry..)
salt and pepper

probably best to start with the noodles and follow the video as above, it’s unbelievably easy… as I say in the ingredients list above, I did use a little more than the 3/4cup but only a tad… the dough is very dry at first but I kneaded it for a good 10 mins the first time and then 5 mins the second time and it worked perfectly…. Lots of flour, don’t be afraid… here’s a little instagram film of me making the noodles today…

//instagram.com/p/soyGh_ADvx/embed/
next make the paste by plaint all the ingredients into a blender or into a large bowl and use a stick blender and blend into a paste, if it seems too dry add a glut or two more oil.

onto the broth and in a large pan or casserole dish, gently heat the oils and then sweat the onion and mushrooms until beginning to tender, then add a large tablespoon of the curry paste (more if you like it hotter) and let the paste sizzle and simmer then cook gently for five minutes, then add the coconut milk and the stock, stir and let that bubble together for a few minutes before adding the rest of the ingredients.

turn down the heat and let it simmer for 20 minutes then turn off the heat entirely whilst to boil up the noodles

boil the noodles for 4 minutes in boiling hot water and a drop of oil, then drain well and add to the soup before serving

as this is a gorgeous vegetarian soup I am sending it off in style to the no croutons required bloggers challenge hosted by Jac from Tinned Tomatoes and Lisa from Lisa’s Kitchen

eat and of course, enjoy!