Heaven in a bowl: sweet-and-sour peanut with pasta, Burmese noodle soup with coconut, noodles and myriad garnishes, and an easy and flavourful dumpling soup
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ne of the best things for lifting deflated spirits is a deep bowl of steaming, restorative soup – perfect for warming the places your old woolly jumper can’t reach. I love the romance and cosiness of creamy European soups drunk straight out of a mug around a fire in November, but in the icy tundra that is January I need something with more heat and intensity, something sustaining, spicy, gutsy and textured, so that I need a fork or chopsticks to eat it, rather than just a spoon. These punchy soups are simply rapture in a bowl, and make for extremely satisfying slurping.
Khao swe is a Burmese noodle soup with hot coconut broth, springy noodles and a madness of garnishes, from boiled eggs to peanuts or crisp shallots. Feel free to swap out the poultry for vegetables such as pumpkin or tofu, or seafood such as prawns.
Prep 15 min
