Spicy Curry Noodle Soup with Chicken and Sweet Potato

This was the cover recipe from a Taste of the World booklet that Bon Appetit sent me for buying my mom a gift subscription last Christmas. I've been gradually collecting the ingredients for this since then.

This recipe involves a lot of prep time, chopping and whatnot, but it's totally worth it. A note: I just realized that I used regular chili paste, not chili paste designated as "hot," so this might be why the soup didn't have as much zing/spiciness as I would have liked. I also could not find the Thai bird chiles, so I left those out, so it was perfect if you prefer mild spiciness.

I think the soup base was really great, and I want to play around with the rest of the ingredients - maybe using broccoli or another vegetable in place of the sweet potato, omitting the chicken, etc. If you're a vegetarian, you can definitely use vegetable broth and omit the chicken and still have a really good soup.

Spicy Curry Noodle Soup with Chicken and Sweet Potato
From: Bon Appetit

Ingredients

2 tablespoons vegetable oil
3 tablespoons chopped shallots
3 garlic cloves, chopped
2 tablespoons minced lemongrass (discard tough outer leaves first)
2 tablespoons fresh ginger, minced and peeled
2 tablespoons Thai yellow curry paste
2 tablespoons curry powder
1 teaspoon hot chili paste (such as Sambal Oelek)
2 13.5-13oz cans unsweetened coconut milk, divided
5 cups low-sodium chicken broth
2 1/2 tablespoons fish sauce (such as nam pla or nuoc nam)
2 teaspoons sugar
3 cups snow peas, trimmed
2 cups sweet potato, peeled and cubed
1 pound dried rice vermicelli noodles or rice stick noodles
3/4 pound skinless, bonless chicken thighs, thinly sliced
1/2 cup red onion, thinly sliced
1/4 cup green onions, thinly sliced
1/4 cup fresh cilantro, chopped
3 red Thai bird chiles or 2 red jalapeño chiles, thinly sliced with seeds
1 lime, cut into wedges

1. Heat oil in a heavy large saucepan/pot over medium heat. Add the shallots, garlic, lemongrass and ginger and stir for about a minute. Reduce heat to medium low. Stir in the curry paste, curry powder, and chili paste. Add 1/2 cup of the coconut milk (scoop out the thick stuff on the top of the can) and stir until the mixture is thick, about 2 minutes. Add the remaining coconut milk, chicken broth, fish sauce, and sugar; bring the broth to a boil. (This can be done a day ahead; refrigerate in the meantime).

2. Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Add the snow peas and boil for about 20 seconds. Remove from pot using a slotted spoon (or if you have one of those pots you can fit a strainer into before boiling - use that) and run the snow peas under cold water to cool. Bring the same pot of water back to a boil and add the sweet potato. Cook until tender, about 7 minutes, then remove from water with the slotted spoon or strainer. Again, bring the water back to a boil and add the noodles; cook until tender but still firm to bite, about 6 minutes. Drain in a strainer and transfer to a bowl.

3. Bring the broth to a simmer. Add the chicken and simmer until it is cooked through, about 10 minutes.

4. Add the sweet potatoes to the broth and simmer for about another minute.  Divide the noodles*,  snow peas, and hot soup among bowls. Scatter red and green onion slices, chopped cilantro, and chiles over the soup. Serve each bowl with a lime wedge.

* Unless you have enormous soup bowls, which I didn't, you will have a lot of noodles left over.  Use them for another meal!



So this is what lemongrass looks like!

And this is what the yellow curry paste looked like. Interesting. 

Thinly sliced chicken thighs: 

Broth: