Thai Vegetable Soup

Living in Thailand we have the opportunity to taste some amazing and exciting new dishes with vegetables that i'd never seen before. One restaurant offered a vegetable soup with 7 different veggies and the flavours were incredible. I've tried to recreate it on my own and found the key ingredient to that special Thai flavour - lime leaves.

Ingredients

1 large carrot, peeled and sliced

1 courgette, peeled and sliced

8 green aubergines, quartered

2 cups pumpkin, peeled and chopped into chunks

1/2 red pepper

1/2 yellow pepper

handful bok choi, chopped

1 large onion, sliced

2 cloves garlic, chopped

2 stalks lemon grass, crushed and sliced

10-15 lime leaves, finely sliced

Coriander and mint leaves roughly chopped

Vegetable stock

2tbls fish sauce

Heat a little oil in a saucepan, add the onion, garlic, lemon grass and lime leaves and stir fry for a few minutes. Add the carrots, pumpkin and aubergines then cover with the stock. Cook for 10 minutes until the pumpkin begins to break up. Stir in the courgettes and peppers. Cook for another 10 minutes or until the soup thickens from the broken pumpkin (add more stock if you think its too thick). Add the bok choi and herbs and fish sauce then cook through. Finish off with a little freshly squeezed lime juice.

It’s a thick and filling soup but if you or your loved ones can’t handle a no-meat option, then adding some spicy chicken or fish balls is a great alternative.