Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Thai-style chicken pumpkin soup


  • 1 large white onion, chopped
  • 4 garlic cloves, chopped
  • 1 tablespoon minced ginger (I used gourmet garden)
  • 1 tablepoon chili pepper blend (gourmet garden again)
  • 1.5lb boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cut into bite sized pieces
  • 2 carrots, peeled and chopped
  • 1 15oz can packed pumpkin
  • 1/2 cup mango nectar
  • juice of 1 lime
  • 1/2 cup creamy peanut butter
  • 3 cups good quality chicken stock
  • 3 tablespoons rice vinegar
  • fresh cilantro, chopped
  • green onions, chopped
  • roasted unsalted peanuts, roughly chopped
  • cooked white rice (take out is best)

In a skillet over a medium flame brown onion, garlic and pepper for 3-5 minutes. Turn off heat and stir in ginger. In large crock pot combine onion mixture with chicken, carrots, pumpkin, mango nectar, lime juice, peanut butter, chicken stock and vinegar. Cover and cook on low for 6-8 hours. Place a mound of cooked rice in center of serving bowl and pour soup around it. Garnish with cilantro, green onions and peanuts.

The dish: I hate our local newspaper, and yet I've been a steady subscriber forever. One of my favorite things to do is to settle back with the Sunday paper and read through all the news and save the colored funnies for a grand finale. Somewhere in there I sort through the mountain of store circulars and coupons. Hiding beneath that yogurt coupon is page after page of useless crap, ranging from Yankee's Christmas ornaments and limited edition trains to elastic waistband comfort pants made from genuine polyester (accept no imitations). One day a few weeks back I saw an ad for a set of three crock pot cookbooks among all the other crap. Feeling a little adventurous I sent in my check and waited 3-4 weeks for my bounty to come in the mail. When they arrived I thumbed through them and was not shocked to see mostly recipes I had seen before. This soup was one of the few new ones that stood out. We decided to be daring and try something new at home. The result was phenomenal; this soup is a winner. It turned out to be not spicy or sweet, but rather very distinctive and comforting. It will most certainly grace the red room again. If you're reading this in the fall of 2009, please be aware that there's a shortage of canned pumpkin and you may have to drive to more than one store before you stumble upon some.

2 comments:

  1. a great way to eat with the rice in the middle-must be yummy with so much ingredients.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Computer Whizz said: De-lish!! What a treat!

    ReplyDelete