Asian coconut soup with chicken meatballs

This was a bit of a different dinner for us on a Friday night. My inspiration came from some fresh chicken mince that I saw at the supermarket, and the very grey and misty weather. I wanted to use the chicken mince in a different way, rather than a pasta sauce or plain meatballs.

I was on the way to the local Asian food shop, which is such a fantastic place to find some cooking inspiration. So, a pack of limes, some coconut milk, fresh udon noodles and some laska paste, and wallah, an Asian coconut soup with chicken meatballs. And it was so good.

I went a bit easy on the spice in the soup, as I wanted the children to eat this without yelling ,'my mouth is burning Mum!' So I served some fresh chilli on the table for the man-of-the-house and I to add a bit of spice ourselves.

I also made the meatballs in advance and cooked them in a frying pan, so all I had to do was plop them into the soup at the end. No messy fussing about cooking them in the soup. This was a lovely, creamy soup with a little spice. The noodles and meatballs filled everyone up and the crunchy snowpeas added some lovely colour and texture. Thumbs up from everyone in the house.

What you'll need

Serves four large bowls.

For the meatballs
500g chicken mince
1 tblsp corn flour
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 thumb-sized piece fresh ginger, minced
1 tblsp soy sauce
1 tblsp fish sauce

For the soup
2 x 400ml cans of coconut milk
1 tblsp laksa paste (use more if you'd like it spicy)
Juice of one lime. If your lime is not very juicy, use two limes
1 chicken stock cube
1 tblsp fish sauce
1 can water (use the empty coconut milk can)
400g fresh udon noodles
Handful of fresh snowpeas
2 hard-boiled eggs, shelled

Serve with fresh chopped chillis, a little soy sauce and some chopped fresh mint.

What to do

Make the meatballs
In a bowl add all the meatball ingredients as above. Mix well with clean hands. Using a teaspoon, scoop out small balls of mince, and with wet hands, roll into balls. Place the balls onto a plate and refrigerate for 30 minutes.

Make the soup
Heat a soup pot on medium heat. Add the laksa paste and stir until fragrant. Then add the coconut milk, lime juice, fish sauce, stock cube and water. Reduce the heat to low and simmer the soup for 15 minutes.

While the soup is cooking, heat a frying pan over medium heat. Add the meatballs and cook, turning once for approximately 10 minutes, until cooked through.

Add the udon noodles to the soup, and break apart gently with a fork. You'll only need to cook them for about 5 minutes at a gentle simmer. Just before serving, add the snowpeas and let cook in the soup for a few minutes.

Assemble the soup into the bowls. Add about 5 - 7 meatballs per bowl, use a spaghetti serving spoon to scoop some noodles and snowpeas from the soup pot. Then use a ladle to pour the soup liquid into the bowl. The liquid should cover most of the ingredients. Finally, halve the boiled eggs, and place one half in each bowl.

Eat while hot, and sprinkle with some fresh chilli, mint soy sauce and lime to squeeze. So tasty and satisfying on a cold evening.