For today’s Tasty Recipe, Erika sent me a link to a delicious sounding soup submitted by thekitchenpixie last September. The name was enough to rope me in: “Thai Chicken Soup with Cilantro-Infused Rice“. Who could possibly resist that?
The ingredients were simple (and I happened to have them all on hand), so yesterday I whipped up a batch.
I’ll give my verdict below. Meantime, here’s how you make it.
Here’s what you need.
Mushrooms, too. Forgot to put ‘em in there.
Begin by dicing up some chicken breast. I made the pieces a little on the small side.
Next, roughly chop an onion…
And a few stalks of celery. Mince up some garlic, too, while you’re at it.
Now heat some olive oil in a large pot.
Throw in the chicken, onions, celery, and garlic…
And stir them around for a minute or two.
Next, pour in 7 cups of water.
Then bring it to a nice simmer and leave it cooking for about 20 minutes.
Now comes the secret ingredient: lime juice! Who’d a thunk it? Pour it right on in there.
Also add the cherry (or grape, in my case) tomatoes…
Next, thinly slice the mushrooms…
And throw them into the pot.
Next comes a whole buncha cilantro…
Stir it around and add 2 teaspoons of salt.
Next, add a good teaspoon of red pepper flakes.
*Note that this quantity does result in a nice, spicy (but not overpoweringly so) soup. If you’re a little frightened of the heat factor, add 1/2 teaspoon at first, then work your way up.
Stir it all together and allow this to cook for an additional ten minutes.
While that’s cooking, let’s make the rice! Pour 1 cup of rice into a saucepan…
Add 2 cups of water and a dash of salt.
Bring it to a slow boil, then reduce heat to a simmer and place on the lid. Leave for about 8 minutes.
With a couple minutes of cooking time remaining, throw in a couple of sprigs of cilantro…
…Then place the lid back on and cook for a couple more minutes.
Serve the soup in a bowl…
With the cilantro-infused rice on the side.
The idea is that you take a little rice…
And dump it into the soup.
Then, as you’re eating the soup, if you find it’s too spicy you can just dump in a little more rice to offset the heat.
Perfect!
THE VERDICT:
I was pleasantly surprised at how delicious this soup was. I loved the ingredient list, but I wondered how flavorful it could be, cooking for such a short time. But honestly, the salt content is perfect…and the lime juice is absolutely delicious! It adds just a tiny bit of tang and dimension. The tomatoes are delicious, too—though they’re awfully hot right out of the pot.
The spice factor is all there—I think I’d back up to 1 teaspoon if I were serving it to kids or company whose spice tolerance was lower. But it was perfect for me.
This really was a treat, and it couldn’t have been easier!
