Hot and Sour Soup

It's been a while since I posted a new recipe and I've been promising this one to people left, right and centre. It is delicious, filling, full of nutrition, cheap, very easy to cook and only 2.5 WW points a portion! It is a good supper-in-a-bowl.

This recipe comes from a really badly organised Weight Watchers cookbook called "Menu Plan Eat Enjoy". I can't over-emphasise how badly indexed this book is; each page contains a full day's menu of dishes/recipes, but only the headline recipe is indexed.

Hot and Sour Soup

Ingredients

1.2 litres/2 pints chicken stock (I used 600ml of strong stock made from the Christmas turkey together with 600ml of boiling water)
350g/12oz skinless boneless chicken breasts sliced thinly (I used a 250g bag of cooked turkey chunks which I froze at Christmas)
75g/3oz shitake mushrooms (I used normal mushrooms, adding a small amount of dried shitake which I soaked for 10 minutes first)
I large red chilli, deseeded and chopped (or use a heaped teaspoon of lazy chilli)
1 red or yellow pepper, deseeded and diced
150g/5oz pak choi cut into quarters then separated into leaves
100g/3.5oz dried egg noodles
2 tablespoons Chinese cooking wine (or sherry)
3 tablespoons rice vinegar
2 tablespoons light soy sauce (I used regular soy sauce since that's what I have)
20 grinds of pepper, preferably white

Method

1. If using dried shitake mushrooms: place in a bowl, cover with hot water and allow to soak for 10 minutes.
   
2. In a large saucepan, bring the chicken stock to the boil. Add the chicken (or diced turkey if using). Bring back to the boil and simmer gently for 5 minutes.
3. Add the mushrooms, chilli and red/yellow pepper. Bring back to a simmer and cook for 3 minutes.
   
4. Break the noodles into smaller sections and stir into the saucepan together with the remaining ingredients. Grind over pepper. Simmer for a further 3-5 minutes or until everything is cooked.
5. Divide evenly between four deep bowls (the hardest part).
   

Yum!

- Pam