London: Tea Time in Wonderland

Some days, you get back home exhausted. You’d love some comfort food, fragrant, gourmet but have not much energy to prepare anything. Owen Potts asked whether I was tempted to give their products a try around a tasty Vietnamese soup and it certainly was very tempted.

You probably have seen their range in your localsupermarket – lovely flavoured stock but also fabulous sauces like the cranberry one with a hint of honey… or the one inspired by Spanish tapas with red pepper and pimenton. So handy to have in your cupboards to sort out a last minute dinner ou just to make your life easy on a daily basis. Bonus points for the very easy opening too -  no need to go hunting for a pair of scissors.Owen Potts actually is one of the most famous creators in that industry -  many great brands have asked him to design chutneys, condimentts, etc for them.

And so, on the menu, a Vietnamese soup you are sure to love. Delicious, of course but even better, prepared in 10mn, cooked in 20mn.

So what do you need? Well, for 2 persons:

* 70g rice pasta

* 500ml Owen Potts chicken stock

* 200g diced breast chicken

* 2 star anise

* 1 cinnamon stick

* 2 bruised lemongrass sticks

* A 2cm piece of fresh ginger, sliced

* A teaspoon of fishsauce

* 150g beansprouts

* To decorate: some salad onion and a half chilli

The rest is easy as ABC.

* Heat the Owen Potts stock with an extra 300ml water, chicken, star anise, ginger and lemongrass. Let it simmer for 15mn or so.

* Scoop the star anise, ginger, lemongrass and cinnamon. Pour the fish sauce in.

* In a separate pan, fry the rice pasta for a couple minutes then add them to the soup.

* Aff the beansprouts and simmer a little longer.

* Serve and sprinkle with sping onions and chilli.

The spices and lemongrass bring a gorgeous fragrance to the whole kitchen -  a real pleasure to prepare, instant change of atmosphere. You can make lots of variants of this too. Add some pak choi. Some single cream. A handful of sesame seeds. Use it as an exotic base for risottos.

Your turn! What would you do with the mustard and tarragon sauce in the same range?