Thai Pork Dumpling Soup

This is a lovely soup I invented for my husband, who loves Thai/Chinese food, but is not keen on soups. He loved it of course, its very yummy! In addition the dumplings can be eaten on their own with a nice dipping sauce such as sweet chilli or satay sauce.

Ingredients - dumplings

500 g pork mince

1 tsp crushed ginger

1 tsp crushed garlic

1/2 bunch finely chopped coriander

1 tbs sweet soy sauce (Kecap Manis - available from Chinese stores)

1/2 cup breadcrumbs

1 tsp fish sauce

1 finely diced red chilli

1/2 carrot, finely grated

4 dried shitake mushrooms, soaked in hot water then finely chopped

Ingredients - soup

2.5 L water

250g rice noodles, cooked in hot water and drained

2 carrots, julienned

1/2 head broccoli, cut into small florets

1/4 cup soy sauce

1/2 cup oyster sauce

2 tbs chicken or vegetable stock powder

sprigs coriander to garnish

Method

Combine all dumpling ingredients in a large bowl, and combine well with your hands. Roll into 3 cm bowls and place onto a lightly greased tray, refrigerate until required.

Cook noodles in boiled water, for approximately 5 min, using a fork to separate them, then drain, rinse and allow to drain again.

Chop broccoli and carrot, add to pot with 2.5 L water and allow to come to the boil. While this is happening add the remaining ingredients to the soup. Taste the soup as you may need to adjust the flavour with additional stock powder.

Place a bamboo steamer lined with baking paper (which has been pierced to allow steam to travel through) over a wok filled with boiling water. Add dumplings and cook in batches for approximately 10 min or until cooked through.

Serve the soup into individual bowls, add noodles to each bowl. followed by 3 or so dumplings, garnish with coriander and serve.