Shrimp Soup with Rice Noodles

Again, this is not an authentic Asian dish, I just tried to create a bit of Asian feeling. This soup makes a substantial light but nutritious meal.

Shrimp Soup with Rice Noodles

Ingredients:
*frozen, peeled and cooked shrimp (~100g per person)
*water
*half of an onion
*garlic
*ginger
*parsley root
*kikkoman soy sauce (I'm a little bit obsessed with kikkoman at the moment)
*various vegetables (a large handful per person) I have used capsicum, celery stalks, green peas, Chinese cabbage, but I think other Asian greens, carrots, alfa-alfa sprouts and lots of other things would do as well
*Thai style rice noodles

Method:
Chop ginger and garlic finely, slice parsley root in thin strips, leave the onion whole. In the pot which you are going to use for soup pour some oil, put the frozen shrimp and thaw them on medium heat. When they are thawed, take the shrimp out and store in a container while you are cooking the rest of the soup. Leave the liquid that came out of the shrimp in the pot, add garlic, ginger, parsley, onion and enough water to make op the volume desired. Bring it to boil than add kikkoman and salt to taste (you are aiming for a rather strong taste). Let the broth simmer slowly while you prepare vegetables. Anything that needs to be cut, has to be cut or shredded in fine strips. Choose at least 3 different vegetables and add the ones who need longer cooking to the broth first followed by others. In another pot cook the rice noodles. Pile the cooked noodles in serving bowls, top with the cooked shrimp, and when all the vegetables are done, remove onion from the soup and throw it out, and pour the hot soup over noodles and shrimp.

Rice noodles are a complicated thing to eat, they are long, slippery and can be really annoying, if you feel obliged to eat nicely. Luckily there are a few solutions for this problem. At first, you can break the noodles up before cooking, shorter lengths are more manageable. Or you can eat them like Khmer do it with their noodles -spoon in the left hand and chopsticks in the right. But IMHO the best solution is to eat them at home together with your loved ones and don't bother about eating nicely :)