Green Curry Soup with Chicken and Mushrooms

Frying the paste, chicken and vegetables

1. Green curry soup is made fairly quickly and is not difficult. Curry mixture in paste form is sold in stores. We chose the green one, which goes better with basil and green onion. In principle you can also use red or yellow paste, adjusting the other ingredients to suit.

2. Before you start cooking, peel and cut all the ingredients, since they are added one after another at short intervals.

   

3. Pour a little vegetable oil into the bottom of a large frying pan. Sunflower or olive oil will do, but you can also use peanut or sesame oil if you have it.

   It’s convenient to cook in a large frying pan and then transfer all the fried ingredients to a pot.

4. Squeeze the curry paste from the packet into the oil. It is quite spicy and hot, so decide on the amount yourself. We like spicy food and use the whole packet. The green curry turns out aromatic and noticeably hot, but it doesn’t burn.

5. Add a bay leaf or kaffir lime leaves and coarsely chopped chili to the paste and fry everything together over medium heat until the paste blends with the oil and heats up, 2-3 minutes.

   

6. Trim large pieces of fat and membranes from the chicken breast and cut it into cubes the size of a large cherry.

7. Add the chicken to the fried paste and keep frying everything together, stirring quite vigorously, until the pieces of meat are coated in paste and start to turn pale.

   

8. Peel the onions and cut them into thick strips.

   We use red onion, which is milder and has a sweetish taste.

9. Add the onion to the chicken and fry for a few more minutes, until the onion becomes a little softer.

10. Remove the stems and seeds from the sweet red pepper and cut it into long, thin strips.

11. Add the pepper to the pan and keep frying.

    If you like, you can add small eggplants together with the sweet pepper: in Thailand they are often put into green curry.

    

12. Fry the chicken and vegetables for 12-15 minutes in total, which is enough.

    If you want to make the soup noticeably hot, you can add more chopped fresh chili while frying the vegetables, or just season with hot ground pepper. While the chicken and vegetables are frying, get ready the pot in which the soup will finish cooking.

    

Cooking the soup

1. An important component of the soup is fresh mushrooms. We traditionally use oyster mushrooms in soups. They are always available in stores and extremely fresh. Besides, unlike button mushrooms, they are much more tender. Buy mushrooms with small caps, and you won’t have to cut them into pieces.

2. Wash the oyster mushrooms and separate them from the cluster. Put the caps into the pot.

3. Add everything from the frying pan and squeeze in the juice of half a lime. You can leave the lime rind in the soup, which makes it tastier.

   

4. Pour in the coconut cream. It is often sold in small packs of 60-80 g, and that is enough.

   You can use a 400 ml can of coconut milk, which is less fatty.

5. Pour 1-1.5 l of water into the pot so that all the ingredients are covered. Stir.

   

6. Put the pot on the heat. Once it starts to boil, cover with a lid and cook the soup over low heat for about 20 minutes.

7. 3-4 minutes before the end of cooking, add the basil leaves from 1-2 sprigs, torn into large pieces. Stir the soup and cook until fully done.

   As a rule, such dishes are not salted. But if you like, you can add 0.5-1 tbsp of light soy sauce, which is quite salty.

   

Serving

1. Prepare chopped green onion, lime halves, fresh chili cut into large pieces, and green basil leaves. Put all the toppings in small dishes.

2. Ladle the soup into large bowls. Large round-bottomed bowls work great.

3. Into each bowl put a few basil leaves, green onion, and chili, and squeeze in some lime juice.

   The soup is noticeably hot and very aromatic, but it doesn’t burn. It rather warms you from the inside, an indescribable feeling. Usually boiled rice is served with curry, but that is a separate dish. With the soup you can serve fresh bread or lavash if you like. But to my taste, the soup is good on its own and bread is unnecessary.