Try something different with this Red Curry Noodle Soup – it’s aromatic, spicy and sour!
It can sometimes feel a little intimidating to try preparing a dish from another culture, but this Red Curry Noodle Soup is fragrant, delicious and easy to make at home, regardless of your roots!
Red Curry Noodle Soup (or Khaub Poob or Kha Poon) is a traditional Lao dish. Lao cuisine is similar to Thai, but has a much more distinct flavor.
The major difference between the two cuisines is that Lao cooking uses an abundance of fresh herbs and vegetables, and dishes are cooked and served immediately.
Thai food, on the other hand, tends to be slow-cooked or marinated overnight.
This Red Curry Noodle Soup is a staple of the Lao culture and is known for its deliciously spicy and sour curry flavored broth.
The spices in this dish pack a healthy dose of vitamin C, which makes this a great meal if you’re feeling unwell..move over, chicken noodle soup!
This dish is traditionally very spicy, so if you don’t like too much heat, you may want to reduce the amount of curry paste used, or look for varieties with a milder flavor.
In Lao, rice noodles are essential to many dishes. Rice noodles are fermented rice vermicelli and are made fresh in Lao. The process is quite long, but very rewarding.
These unique noodles are made by soaking rice grains in water, leaving them to ferment before they are ground. The ground grains form a paste which is gathered into a ball, wrapped in banana leaf and steamed in a bamboo basket.
The paste is then pounded into a flexible dough; water is added as the dough is kneaded and the mixture is strained through a mesh cloth.
The strained mixture is pushed through a mold to create noodles the thickness of spaghetti.
As the noodles are fermented, they must be eaten the same day.
Fortunately, we can get away with doing a lot less work by skipping this step and picking up a packet of rice noodles from an Asian supermarket! Packaged noodles can be cooked and reheated, unlike the fresh ones.
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Red Curry Noodle Soup (Khaub Poob or Khao Poon)
Ingredients
- 10 cups Water
- 1 whole Chicken
- 1 can Coconut Milk
- 1 cup Red Curry Paste
- 2 5.6 oz cans Curry base
- 1/4 cup Garlic minced
- 2 cups Bamboo Shoots
- 6 teaspoons Chicken Bouillon
- 1 pinch of Salt to taste
- 32 ounces Rice Vermicelli Noodles
- 1 tablespoons Olive Oil
- 8 Eggs boiled
- 2 tablespoons Asian paprika optional – makes the sauce red
- 1 tablespoon Ground chili oil optional – makes the sauce red
- 2 slicess Fresh Ginger
- 1 pinch of Granulated Sugar to taste, optional
Instructions
- Bring 8-10 cups of water to boil in a large pot. Add the rice noodles, stirring them so that they don’t stick to the bottom of the pan.
- Drain the water from the cooked noodles and add cold water, and drain again. Repeat until noodles are cool enough to handle.
- Place a strainer to one side. Pick up clumps of the noodles and smooth them out so that they are not all tangled together. Place each clump in a spiral shape; this will help create the sections of noodles you’ll add into the soup, and stops them from clumping all together.
- Bring 6 cups of water to a boil in a medium pot.
- Add cleaned chicken to the boiled water, and skim off any foam that appears as the chicken cooks. Drain the cooked chicken, and set aside.
- In a medium pot, heat 1 tbsp of the oil over medium heat. Fry the garlic until it is just browned; stir in the curry paste and gravy, mixing well.
- Add the coconut milk and paprika. You’ll notice the colours are a vibrant orangey-red!
- In a separate large pot, add 12-14 cups of water. Tip the curry mixture into the water and add 2 tbsp of chicken bouillon. Keep this on a low simmer.
- In the meantime,shred the chicken and mix with the bamboo shoots. Add to the pot and stir thoroughly. Reduce heat and simmer.
- To serve, take a clump or two of noodles and lay into the bottom of a soup bowl. Ladle the red curry soup on top and garnish.
- You can mix and match the garnishing to suit your preference, but shredded carrots, cabbage, and chopped cilantro and mint with a squeeze of lime is traditional!