First off, Pam at ThreeManyCooks.com recommended using an already cooked rotisserie chicken. I, on the other hand, always thinking about how to cook the entire dish outdoors, decided to cook the chicken in the Dutch oven first. Don't get me wrong, the results were great. But it made cooking this dish take a long time. It was starting to get dark as I was finishing and the final picture of the soup in the Dutch oven was a little bit dark. I didn't even get to take a picture of the dish served in a bowl. If you want to try this dish, which I highly recommend, I would suggest going the rotisserie chicken route, which will save you 45 minutes to an hour.
OK, let me tell you what I did to cook Thai Chicken Soup.
As normal for a Dutch oven dish, I got my charcoal going and then once those coals were ready I got the Dutch oven heating up.
I put a whole chicken in the Dutch oven, and after cooking it for about 20 minutes I added a quart of chicken broth. Since the Dutch oven is hot, you want to make sure to add the broth really slow.
Adding cold liquid to a hot Dutch oven is a recipe for having to throw out your Dutch oven by warping it or cracking it. Adding just a little bit of broth at a time gets the Dutch oven to cool down a little and then you can add the rest. Chicken cooks great in a Dutch oven. The oven acts almost like a pressure cooker and the chicken turns out very moist and this time was no exception.
While the chicken was cooking in one Dutch oven, I got a couple quarts of water boiling in another. Once the water was boiling, I removed the Dutch oven from the heat and added the rice noodles to the boiling water and let them soak for about five or 10 minutes.
Once they were sufficiently softened I drain them and then put them in a bowl and set aside. That was another thing about this dish--I had to have several bowls to keep different parts of the dish in as I cooked. Not something I normally have to do for something cooked outside.
While the chicken was cooking I started preparing the vegetables. I peeled and cut carrots into diagonal slices, stemmed and seeded and cut up a red bell pepper, diced a onion and minced some garlic cloves. Those were going into the broth first. Later I would add chunks of Napa cabbage, so I cut that up as well.
After the chicken was done, I removed it from the Dutch oven and put it on a cutting board to remove the meat. I removed as much chicken as I could, then returned the bones and skin to the Dutch oven and broth and allowed them to continue to cook to help flavor the broth.
That whole part is the part that you can do faster if you use rotisserie chicken which is already cooked. Basically, you would cut off as much of the chicken as you can, put the bones and skin into the broth in the Dutch oven and then continue as described below.
I cooked the chicken broth and chicken bones and skin another 15 or 20 minutes. I removed the chicken bones and skin and strained the broth until I had about a quart of liquid . In the end I didn't have quite that much so I added a bit more water and a chicken bouillon cube to get to the amount of liquid that I needed.
The Dutch oven was now empty, after straining the broth, so I added a bit of oil to the bottom and then added the onion and garlic and sautéed until they were soft. I added the curry paste and stirred it in with the onions and garlic and cooked for another minute or so. This helps the flavors increase.
I added back the broth, slowly like before, then some coconut milk, the chicken, bell peppers, carrots and some sugar snap peas. I don't know if Thai food actually has peas or not, but I love the extra texture, flavor, and color that the peas give to the dish. I simmired this mixture until the carrots were just about done which took about 10 to 15 minutes.
Next I added the cabbage to the stew and cooked the cabbage until it was just done, which took a couple more minutes. Finally I added the noodles and some cilantro and cooked the whole soup until everything was heated through.
Some lime wedges topped this off and everybody loved it.
If you want a bit more spice to this dish you can either some sriracha sauce to the soup or put a bottle of sriracha sauce on the table for others to use.
To be honest this dish took quite a while to cook. As I said before using a rotisserie chicken would help a lot and is what Pat at Three Many Cooks suggested. If you are going camping, a good way to do this would be to cook the chicken in a crock pot ahead of time, remove the meat, and put in zip-lock bags to take and then just use chicken bouillon for the broth base. Either way you'll get an exotic dish with a bit of kick that everyone will love.
- 8 oz rice noodles
- 1 quart chicken broth (add more if needed)
- 1 whole chicken (rotisserie chicken if you don't want to cook the chicken in a Dutch oven)
- 2 tbsp olive oil
- 1 onion, diced
- 4 garlic cloves
- 4 tbsp red Thai curry paste
- 1 can (13.5 oz) coconut milk
- 1 red bell pepper, stemmed, seeded, and cut into 1" pieces
- 3 large carrots, peeled and cut into diagonal slices
- 1 1/2 cups sugar snap peas (in pods)
- 1/2 Napa cabbage, cut into large chunks
- 1/2 cup cilantro, chopped
- lime wedges
- Start coals heating for Dutch oven. You'll need enough for two Dutch ovens.
- When coals are ready, start heating one Dutch oven to cook the chicken in. For a 12" Dutch oven, you'll want about 27 coals, evenly spaced, top and bottom.
- Fill another Dutch oven with 2 quarts water and start it heating as well.
- When the first Dutch oven is heated, add the chicken and put the lid back on. Let cook for 20 minutes.
- When the water is boiling in the second Dutch oven, remove from heat, and add the rice noodles. Let soak until tender, around 5 minutes. Drain the water and put the noodles into a bowl for later use.
- After 20 minutes of cooking the chicken, slowly add one quart of chicken broth.
- Put the lid back on and let cook until chicken is done. It took me about another 40 minutes.
- While chicken is cooking, prepare the vegetables. Dice the onion coarsely, cut the carrots, and red bell pepper.
- When chicken is done, take out and put on a cutting board. Cut off as much chicken as you can and then return the bones and skin to the broth in the Dutch oven and continue to cook to remove rest of the chicken and flavor the broth.
- After 15 minutes, strain the broth. If you don't have at least a quart of broth, add some more.
- Add the oil to the bottom of the Dutch oven and saute the onion and garlic. When they are soft, add the red Thai curry paste and stir for another minute.
- Add the broth (slowly), chicken, coconut milk, red bell peppers, carrots, and sugar snap peas.
- Bring to a simmer and cook until carrots are tender, which should be around 15 minutes. The times all depend on your coals, the outside temperature, and wind. Best to judge by taste and tenderness than strictly time.
- Add the cabbage and simmer until cabbage is just done, a few more minutes.
- Finally add the noodles and cilantro, and cook until everything is heated through.
- Serve with lime wedges
P.S. If you haven't cooked with a Dutch oven before, check out my series on Getting Started With Dutch Oven Cooking.
P.P.S. Another great resource to get started with Dutch Oven Cooking is Mark Hansen's Black Pot For Beginners.
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