Do you keep potent, spicy Thai curry paste in your pantry? Well, you should.
If you do, you’re one very close step to an aromatic, comforting dinner that comes together in record time. A dinner that is, save for some protein and optional fresh herbs, entirely based around other pantry items — coconut milk, rice noodles, fish sauce — that are also must-haves for easy, fast meals. Canned coconut milk adds silky richness to far more than curries; add it to blended vegetable soups instead of cream or use it as the base for a fragrant rice pudding. Rice noodles? A quick dip in boiling water and they’ll get you halfway to gluten-free stir-fries and refreshing cool salads. And fish sauce adds a glimmer of umami to anything it touches.
But back to this curry noodle soup. The recipe below is based, just barely, on a much more ingredient-heavy and slightly more time-consuming dish published in the 2014 cookbook, “Simple Thai Food” by Leela Punyaratabandhu, an excellent resource for anyone who wants to explore the cuisine a bit deeper.
Instead of two types of homemade curry paste, we’ll use just the one, store-bought, and instead of broth, we’ll use water that’s seasoned heavily with fish sauce. Otherwise, the concept is the same: bloom curry paste in oil, transform it into a sauce thickened with coconut milk, and let shredded rotisserie chicken and rice noodles soak it all up. A shower of fresh herbs and a squeeze of fresh lime juice are both listed as optional serving garnishes, but let’s call them strongly recommended ingredients. Spice heads will want to add a small dab of additional curry paste at the table as well.
If you’d like to make the dish vegetarian, you’ll just need to make a couple easy swaps. Season the broth with salt and lime juice instead of the fish sauce, and dice up a block of firm tofu and add it to the broth instead of the chicken.
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