Rainbow Pepper Chicken Noodle Soup

Name: Rainbow Pepper Chicken Noodle Soup
Yield: Serves 6
Ingredients: medium rice noodles 200 g/7 oz; fresh galangal or ginger root 2 tsp, finely chopped; white, pink and green peppercorns ½ tsp each, crushed; chicken stock 1.5 litres/2¾ pints, preferably home-made; red chilli 1 small, deseeded and finely chopped; boneless skinless chicken thighs or breasts 450 g/1 lb in total, cut into 1cm/½in cubes; kaffir lime leaves 4, finely shredded; lemon grass inner leaves from 2 stalks, finely chopped; limes juice from 2; fish sauce 1–3 tsp; coriander stems discarded, leaves sliced to make 5 tbsp; mint leaves sliced to make 4 tbsp

Preparation info

Serves
6

Difficulty
Easy

Appears in

Pepper

By Christine McFadden

Published 2008

About

A deeply comforting and restorative soup: chicken and noodles simmered in lemon grass- and chilli-infused stock, seasoned with a rainbow mix of crushed white, pink and green peppercorns. Normally I’m not in favour of mixing pink peppercorns with proper pepper, but it seems to work here.

Ingredients

red chilli 1 small, deseeded and finely chopped
lemon grass inner leaves from 2 stalks, finely chopped
kaffir lime lea

Soup
Spicy

Method

Put the chilli, lemon grass, lime leaves and galangal in a bowl and pour over enough hot water to just cover. Leave to steep for 15 minutes, then mash to a coarse paste.

Heat the stock in a large saucepan with the mashed spice paste and the peppercorns. Add the chicken, bring to the boil, then simmer over low heat for 20 minutes.

Meanwhile, cook the noodles according to the pack