I have a cold, and needed something light, spicy, and really quick to make. This is a great meal for 1, but also you can double or triple the recipe to have more for others. I have been looking for good brothy soups for the winter, and this one is not only good and cosy, but really light in calories. You can add noodles to it if you wish, or some bread. Or! Another option would be to switch out the prawns for pork. If you do that make sure to add the pork from the beginning so that it can cook through.
I do suggest however for the Siracha – read my ingredient suggestion carefully. If you can handle spice, go ahead it is gorgeous, but if you cannot, maybe hold fire. This is definitely one of those recipes where you can choose the actually amounts of seasonings that you want. I suggest don’t take my amounts, but instead slowly add your own until you love the flavour. And please! Do tell me what you come up with (HINT: Lemongrass would be great in this too)… Regardless how you change it – remember the vinegar and hot sauce needs to stay, otherwise you won’t have a hot and sour soup :).
Servings: 1
Calories per serving: 233
Prawn Hot and Sour Soup Recipe
Ingredients
- 60 g uncooked prawns (to save my cooking for 1, I have gone for frozen prawns)
- 47g chopped fine onions
- Heavy dash or 2 tsp Chinese 5 Spice seasoning (my one has a lot of aniseed in it so I don’t use THAT much of it)
- 1 Lamb stock cube (I know - “what is going on? She used prawns earlier?”)
- 2 mushrooms
- 2 tsp ground ginger (alternatively you can go with only 1 if you wish. Or fresh ginger)
- 1/2 tbsp garlic paste
- 1/2 tbsp tomato paste
- 2 tbsp chinese rice vinegar
- 1 tbsp Siracha (now needing to measure things out - I may have heavy handed this. I love spice, and spicy food. But this amount even made me think “hmmm, I actually think this is getting a bit spicy” so if you can’t handle spice, add this in dashes until you are happy with the amount of spice)
- 105 g frozen mixed vegetable mix. I have gone with the Essential Waitrose mix that has carrots, petits pois, green beans, sweet corn etc. It is a good variety mix and if you are looking to do simple dinners for one, it is a key mix as you can add it to many recipes.
Directions
- Step 1 Remove the prawns from the freezer to start them defrosting. The best thing about using frozen vegetables? They are usually already prepared. That being said – I used fresh mushrooms. Chop your mushrooms and add to a small sized saucepan. Cover it with the lid so that the water stays with the mushrooms and means that you don’t need additional oil.
- Step 2 Once they have lost a decent amount of their water, add the frozen onions. Again, add the lid and sweat them. There should be a noticeable amount of water in the bottom of the saucepan at this point. Add your powder spices and let them soak up the water, fry and activate. Add the garlic paste and the lamb cube and allow them to dissolve partially (i.e. you want the lamb cube to break up). Add the tomato paste. Continue frying, stirring constantly so that it doesn’t stick. Add your frozen veggies, stir them in the sauces, and add as much water as you wish. I usually stick to a rule of thumb – just cover the veggies, but you may want to add more. The trick is to add just a bit at a time so that you can taste what the broth will taste like and you won’t have a bland soup on your hands.
- Step 3 Add the fluid seasonings, and crank up the heat. Boil it until the veggies are cooked. Turn the heat off (if you had it at a strong boil for a long period of time, this is fine). Add the prawns. Stir the mixture constantly as this will cook your prawns. They should become red and curl in on themselves. The more they curl in the more cooked / over cooked they are.
- Step 4 And serve immediately. The whole dish takes about 20 minutes from start to finish and is a really simple dinner for one.
