Thai soup

This is a dish to warm those winter blues. It takes you to the flavours and smells, and the warmth of far away places. Its also wholesome, nutritious, satisfying and uses store cupboard ingredients. The perfect midweek tea in a hurry. I used chicken here, but another time I used a mixture of monkfish and prawns, just slicing the monkfish thinly and dropping into the soup for a minute or so to cook through. The point of this kind of soup is to have the basic recipe which you can add whatever you fancy or have in the fridge. Sometimes I use noodles (rice noodles are easiest, those glassy ones you just pour boiling water over and leave for a couple of minutes), but if I'm feeling more virtous I leave them out. I have so many of my friends getting cross with me when I suggest that they could change a recipe or just thow a bit of this or that in. If you're one of those people who needs order and a recipe to follow, then stick with the basic soup recipe to ensure the balance of flavours, and then throw caution to the wind and honestly, add any, or all of the suggested extras. Or try anything that you are yearning for here. A little of what you fancy goes a long way... Ingredients
1 litre of chicken stock
200ml (or half a tin) of coconut milk
a 3-4cpm piece of ginger, peeled and sliced into strips (I keep mine in the freezer. You can cut or grate it from frozen honestly)
1 fresh red chilli, deseeded and chopped
1 teaspoon turmeric
1 teaspoon tamarind paste
1 teaspoon sugar (palm, soft brown, white whatever you have)
2 tablespoons lime juice

2 tablespoons fish sauce
2-3 tablespoons chopped coriander (again I often use this from the freezer, it crumbles from frozen)

Suggested extras
Cooked chicken, fish, prawns, squid, beanspouts, pak choi, water chestnuts, sugar snaps, noodles.....

So simple, you'll see why its such a good midweek tea.
Place all the ingredients in a saucepan and heat through. ensure the vegetables are tender (most of these vegeatbles will need very little cooking, so if using chicken put this in first to heat through properly. Bring to the boil and cook for a couple of minutes.
If using, put the cooked noodles into the bowls. If using cooked shellfish then also put these on top of the noodles. The heat of the soup will warm them through enought so as not to over cook them and turn them into bullets. Ladle the hot soup ontop of the noodles.
Eat with a spoon and a fork.