Spicy Red Curry Soup

Tuesday was a rainy day in Chicago. So soup seemed like a nice thing to have for dinner. We have seen a lot of recipes for curry soups and have been wanting to make one for awhile. There was some shrimp in the freezer, which seemed like the perfect thing to drop into some yummy soup. The smell of the soup as it was simmering was so delightful.

For the soup
1 tablespoon peanut oil
1/2 inch chunk of ginger
1 tablespoon red curry paste
1 lemongrass stalk chopped
1 quart chicken stock
1 cup coconut milk
1/4 cup heavy cream
2 strips of lime zest
2 or 3 shitake mushrooms sliced
salt to taste


For the garnish
1 cup sticky rice- we did basmati in the rice cooker
8 jumbo shrimps
sliced red pepper and carrots
splash of lime juice

For the soup you want heat the peanut oil in a stock pot. Once hot add in the ginger, red curry paste and lemongrass. Cook this for a few minutes, then add in the stock, coconut milk and the cream and lime (we also threw in a lime leaf, Chris has a big lime tree). Bring this to a boil and then turn the heat down to a nice simmer. Simmer for at least 15 minutes, but if you have more time, I would let it cook for a little longer. You should start your rice around now as well. Depending on how you are cooking it.


After it has simmered, you need to strain out the ginger, lemongrass and lime. Or you can do it by fishing them out if you don't have a strainer. After you strain you can add in the mushrooms and taste it to see if you want to add more curry paste or lime juice.

Now you will want to cook up your shrimps, you can either broil, fry, grill. You can really cook them however you want. We just put a little oil in a pan and cooked them on the stove top, which is very quick and easy. Shrimp cooks very fast. You cook it till it's not translucent anymore.

When you are ready to serve, put a little rice in the bottom of a bowl, pour the soup on top, drop in some shrimp and top with the carrots and peppers.


This is a quick, very warming soup. We can't wait to try making more Thai inspired soup. If only more places sold lemongrass. It can be hard to find. I would try whole foods or fox and obel. We are off to St.Louis for a wedding this weekend. But when we get back we are going to post the fabulous Flammekueche (pizza topped with crème fraîche bacon and onions) that we made the other night...yes I think we are obsessed with homemade pizza now.