A few weeks ago I made Thai sweet potato chicken soup. This recipe has a lot of the same ingredients, but a very different texture and flavor. Instead of using coconut milk and whipped sweet potatoes as a base, I used sweetened coconut and water as a base. This version is much lighter, and much faster to make. Sorry I couldn’t offer something totally different for you, but honestly all I had in my fridge this morning was some chicken, a bag of coconut, 1/2 sweet potato, and a few eggs. Gotta love being unemployed! (Not so much).
This recipe is for about 6 servings. Cut up 1/2 sweet potato in small cubes. It’s worth it to take your time and make them pretty since you’ll be clearly seeing them in the final soup product.
Cut up 1 chicken breast in small pieces.
In a sauce pan add the sweet potatoes, chicken, about 1/2 cup of coconut (more or less, depending on how much you like coconut), a nice splash of olive oil, a few cloves of chopped garlic, some ginger, garlic powder, onion powder, cayenne pepper, curry powder, saffron (if you have it), a splash of soy sauce, and a nice portion of salt. Because the coconut is so sweet, you need to offset it with that soy and salt. Actually, I went through the whole process just using salt till I added soy and realized it had a lot more depth of flavor that way.
Turn the heat on high and cook till the chicken has just become white on the outsides. Keep stirring!
Once the chicken is cooked, add in at least 2 cups of water, more or less. Now here you have some options- if you’d like to add chicken stock or milk instead, go for it. I did it the cheap way. I like to have a little substance to my soups, so I did thicken it up with a little bit of flour. To do this, in a separate bowl add about a tablespoon of flour with a few tablespoons of cold water. Mix till smooth and add to the hot liquid. Anyway, cook this till the sweet potatoes are done. Mine took about 15-20 minutes. Make sure to TASTE IT before you serve! No one likes bland soup.
And voila, a delicious soup in less than 30 minutes and 3 main ingredients.
1/2 sweet potato – $.42
1 chicken breast – $.58 (got it on sale)
Handful of coconut – $.20
6 servings – $1.20
1 serving – $.20
Yo, that’s some cheap soup.
It's all about your knife. To get that nice cut, you can't be using a tiny little steak or paring knife–but a chef's knife. Most people use an 8" knife, but some people with larger hands like a 10" knife. Check out what I posted a few days ago about knife skills. I think it'll answer a lot of questions- and especially check out that video at the end of the post! Good luck!
http://www.brokeandhealthy.com/2010/04/knife-skills-and-why-it-sucks-not-to.html
so how do you get the small squares of sweet potatoes so even?