Chicken Soup With Pickled Lime (Gai Tom Manao Dong)

For The Pickled Limes

• 8 limes
• 1/2 cup of salt
• salt for kneading
• 3 cups of boiling water

For The Soup

• 500g chicken legs (or any chicken you like)
• 4 cloves of garlic
• 2 tbsp coriander stalks
• 1 pickled lime + 1/4 cup of pickled lime juice
• 1 tbsp fish sauce
  
• 1 chicken stock cube
• 1 teaspoon black peppercorn

Special Cooking Equipment Used

• mortar and pestle
  
• pot
  
• sealable jar
  

Cooking instructions

Step 1: First we will show you how to make pickled limes. You can just buy them, but we like to make them ourselves at home. if you buy them from the store skip straight to step 3. Start by removing the stalks from the limes, and piercing the top of the lime with a knife. Then rub some salt into the skin of the lime to remove the bitterness. Repeat this process for all of the limes, making sure you spend at least 1 to 2 minutes rubbing salt on to each lime.

Step 2: Now steam the limes on a medium heat for about 10 to 15 minutes until they turn an olive like colour. Follow by boiling about 3 cups of water, and mixing the boiling water with 1/2 cup of salt, until the salt has dissolved in the water. Then place the limes into a sealable jar, pour in the salt water, seal, and leave the limes to pickle for about 4 weeks, after which time the limes and the salt limewater will be ready for use.

Step 3: Next add 4 cloves of garlic, 2 tbsp of coriander stalks, and 1 teaspoon of black peppercorn to a mortar and pestle and crush everything.

Step 4: Now peel 2 cucumbers, and remove the cores by cutting them in half and carefully cutting out the centre. Follow by cutting the seedless cucumbers into roughly 1 inch pieces.

Step 5: Next bring 3 cups of water to the boil in a pot, and add 1 chicken stock cube, the crushed garlic, coriander stalks, and peppercorn we made earlier, and 500g of chicken legs. Give everything a stir, lower the heat to a medium heat, and cook for 30 minutes.

Step 6: After 30 minutes have passed, add 1 pickled lime along with 1/4 cup of pickled lime juice, the peeled cucumber chunks, and 1 tbsp of fish sauce. Gently stir, place a lid on the pot, and leave to simmer for 30 minutes. By now the cucumber and chicken should be cooked, and the soup is ready to serve! You can serve the pickled lime in your soup, but don’t eat it, this is just to add flavour to the soup. You can eat this soup on its own, with rice, or accompanied by other dishes.