Just back from Portugal - again! And I can’t tell you how ridiculously-good their corn-fed chicken is… plus the vegetables from the Saturday market in Lagos, courtesy of the local farmers who bring their produce every single week - so fresh, so delicious, so colourful and so ‘straight from the earth and onto your plate’. So I had to make my my One Pot Chicken but with everything that the farmers had to offer - cabbage, peppers, aubergines, parsley and a few delicious nuts thrown in - that was a meal let me tell you!

I suppose it goes way back to those slippery, little noodles in Knorr’s Chicken Noodle Soup? I don’t think I have ever come across a single person who was growing up in the 60’s who didn’t delight in that deliciously-lovely ‘powdered’ soup that only needed some water to make it come alive - with oodles of noodles!

Sadly, I have just had a look at the ingredients and they weren’t really proper noodles at all! Maltodextrin, EGG pasta [durum WHEAT semolina, dried EGG white, dried EGG yolk] (23%), potato starch, salt, flavourings (contain EGG, WHEAT, BARLEY), chicken (2.5%), sugar, chicken fat (2.5%), onion powder, yeast extract, citric acid, turmeric, parsley, antioxidant (extracts of rosemary). Oh well, didn’t seem to do us too much harm and perhaps gave us a taste of just why noodles are the business (especially in soups)!

It is hard to put into words just how utterly delicious my Thai Prawn Noodle Soup is … as I say in the intro, it is all about the spice paste right at the offset. I use one of those little spice-grinders and it makes light work of the process and your soup can be ready in less than half an hour!

Instead of the prawns, you can substitute cooked and shredded chicken or duck, strips of salmon, cubes of tofu or just a few diced spring onions, spinach or bok choy.