I recently came across the idea for this soup while visiting Jürgen and Elke in Karlsruhe. The two took us out to a Thai restaurant that offered a soup which was hard to beat. Naturally the cook didn’t want to reveal his recipe to us so I have experimented a little and feel the results speak for themselves.

Serves 6 as an appetizer
• 1 piece of fresh ginger (about 4 cm)
• 3 sprigs of lemon grass
• 1 small fresh red chili pepper
• 3 small spring onions
• 4-6 cherry tomatoes
• 6-7 large mushrooms
• 20 snap or mangetout peas
• 1 can of coconut milk (400 ml)
• 1½ tsp green curry paste
• 3 tablespoons Asian fish sauce (ready-made)
• 2 tsp brown sugar
• Parsley
• 1 bunch of coriander leaves
• 700 ml vegetable or chicken broth
• 300 g chicken breast or shrimps
• Salt
• 1-2 tbsp lime juice

Preparation
Wash the ginger and lemongrass. Cut ginger into slices, lemongrass into 3 cm long pieces. Wash, clean chili, removing the seeds if desired, and cut into thin strips.
Bring the prepared ingredients to the boil together with the coconut milk, curry paste, fish sauce and sugar and let everything cook gently for five minutes.

Wash the coriander and pluck off the leaves. Add the soup broth and bring to the boil. Cut the chicken into bite-sized pieces, add to the soup and cover for 6-8 min. until done. The shrimp can be cooked in a pan. Add the ingredients according to their cooking times. Spring onions and snap peas take longer to cook than the tomatoes and mushrooms
Season the soup with salt, fish sauce and lime juice to taste. Garnish with 2-3 coriander leaves and serve.