Ingredients

• chicken stock or (Campbell's) Chicken Consomme'
• chicken breast or thigh fillets (no skin)
• noodles (or vermicelli if you can't get noodles)
• bean sprouts
• spring onions
• herbs & spices such as ginger, coriander, cumin, lemon grass or garlic
• lemons

Two or more of:

• Bok Choi
• onions
• snow peas (aka Mange Tout)
• corn
• mushrooms

Equipment

• two large pots
• slotted spoon
• ladle
• very large bowls to serve soup in
• chopsticks, spoons

Instructions

Chop up the chicken into cubes. Make them smaller than you think they should be, because they will swell up.

Chop up the vegetables that need chopping. Put aside the bean sprouts and spring onions.

Squeeze the lemons and put the juice in a jug, or quarter the lemons and put on a plate on the table.

Put the stock/soup in a pot, with the herbs & spices. Put the chicken in. If you are using vermicelli instead of noodles, put the vermicelli in too. If you are using onions, put them in too. Bring the soup to the boil, and then simmer. This should take about ten minutes.

Make another large pot of water to cook the vegetables in (because they won't fit in the first pot). Simmer the bok choi / snow peas / corn / mushrooms in the pot for a few minutes. If you are using three-minute noodles, put them in the main soup pot at this point too.

When it's all cooked, serve as follows. With the slotted spoon, put the chicken and noodles from the soup pot into everyone's bowls. Likewise, put the strained vegetables from the other pot into each bowl. Then put a handful of bean sprouts. Sprinkle with spring onions. Then ladle the actual soup from the soup pot into the bowls, over the solids already there.

Pour on lemon juice to taste. (The cook can do that, or leave it up to the eaters).

Eat with chopsticks and spoon.