Quick and dirty chicken soup
Author: 
Recipe type: Main
Cuisine: Fusion
Prep time: 
Cook time: 
Total time: 
Serves: 2
 
A quick and easy chicken soup.
Ingredients
Soup Base
  • 150g chicken, cooked, and shredded
  • 2 nests egg noodles
  • 8 cups water
  • 1 tablet instant chicken/vegetable broth (dosage for 2 cups, YMMV. I used one tab of the Knorr organic vegetable bouillon; it's not on their website as it's probably a Europe-only product, but the vegetable broth on the US website sounds very similar)
  • 3 cloves garlic
  • 1 0.5cm-thick (0.2") nub of ginger
  • 1 tablespoon nuoc mam
  • 1 teaspoon five spice
  • 1 tablespoon toasted sesame oil
Garnish
  • 8-10 fresh coriander stems, loosely chopped
  • 3 spring onions, green part only, chopped into rings (optional)
Instructions
  1. In a saucepan, heat the water until it boils.
  2. Meanwhile, finely grate the garlic and the ginger. Put a frying pan on the stove, some oil, and fry the mixture until it turns golden.
  3. Add the garlic-ginger mixture, the chicken, and the tablet of instant broth into the water.
  4. Adjust the heat until you have a high persistent simmering (bubbles shooting to the surface regularly, but water not yet boiling in great gouts). Mix gently until the tab is dissolved. Add the nuoc mam, the five spices. Taste and adjust; it should be salty with a kick, but not too much.
  5. Leave everything to mingle together for about 5 minutes.
  6. Put the noodles, and wait for them to cook.
  7. Add the sesame oil, mix well, taste and adjust with more nuoc mam if needed. Lower the heat.
  8. Prepare two soup bowls as follows: half the coriander and half the spring onions. Then serve half the soup in each.
Recipe by Aliette de Bodard at https://www.aliettedebodard.com/recipes/quick-dirty-chicken-soup/