Thai Coconut Curry Soup

For Easter this year, my cousin and I had the brilliant idea for lunch to be soup and sandwiches (it's so simple yet so delicious)! One of the soups that we served was a luscious and exotic Thai coconut soup.

With autumn just around the corner, bearing with it soup weather, I thought there couldn’t be a better time than to share this incredible meal with you all!

The original recipe we used was based on this one from All Recipes. I've tweaked it a bit here, but it still contains the basic delicious elements of the original recipe.

You'll also notice I served my soup in coconut shells - a wonderful idea I located on Pinterest that lends an "authentic" flair to the meal. So much fun! Enjoy :)

Serves: 8-10 | Preparation Time: 50 minutes | Cooking Time: 50 minutes

Ingredients:

- 3 Tbsp butter

- 4Tbsp grated ginger

- 1 stalk lemongrass, minced

- 4 tsp red curry paste

- 2 white onions, finely diced

- 5 stalks celery, finely diced

- 3 carrots, finely diced

- 8 cups chicken broth

- 3 Tbsp fish sauce

- 3 Tbsp light brown sugar

- 3 (13.5 oz) cans coconut milk

- 1/2 lb fresh mushrooms, sliced

- 4 Tbsp fresh lime juice

- 1/4 cup fresh cilantro, minced

- 1 lb chicken, sausage, shrimp, or beef (optional)

- salt to taste

- sriracha to taste

Directions:

1. Heat butter in a large pot over medium heat. Add ginger, lemongrass, onions, celery, carrots, and curry paste to the heated butter and let simmer until onions are soft, approximately 5 minutes.

2. Slowly pour in chicken broth, stirring continually. Add the fish sauce and brown sugar. Simmer for 15 minutes.

3. While soup is simmering, cut up your meat.

For shrimp: devein the shrimp and add to the simmering mixture.
For chicken or beef: cut chicken or beef into thin strips and seethe in coconut milk for extra flavour.
For sausage, cook sausage as you usually would prepare it and cut it into small slices.

4. Stir the coconut milk and mushrooms into the soup mixture. Keep over heat until mushrooms soften, approximately 5 minutes.

5. Add meat to the soup. Let simmer for about 5 minutes. Stir in lime juice and season with salt. Garnish with cilantro. Enjoy!