Thai Pepper Soup

This is a spicy hot soup, rich and lemony with the taste of fresh green pepper corns. A Thai supermarket should be able to do the fresh green pepper corns, which will freeze just fine although they lose some of their bright green colour and crunchy texture.

Ingredients
Garnish

• 1 red pepper, finely diced
• 2 tbsp coriander, finely chopped
• ½ red chilli, finely diced
• ½ carrot, finely diced
• 3 spring onion greens, finely chopped

Soup

• 1 litre good vegetable stock
• 125ml white wine
• 4 tbsp light soy sauce
• 1/2 large red chilli, chopped finely
• 1 strand fresh pepper (1 tsp corns)
• 1 kaffir lime leaf, torn in shreds
• 1 lemon grass stalk, bashed and knotted
• 3 spring onion whites, chopped lengthways into matchsticks
• 1 clove garlic, chopped

To prepare the lemon grass, hold the thin end and give it a series of damn good whacks on the kitchen worktop: it should mush the bulbous end and generally make a mess of things, although lemon grass is so fibrous it'll hold together. Now just twist it into a knot and pop it in the soup: the bashing releases all the oils in the grass.

Mix garnish ingredients together and then divide between four soup bowls. Heat the soup ingredients together in a pan for 5-10 minutes, stirring occasionally. Remove lemon grass and pour into bowls. Serve immediately.