• Place all the ingredients apart from the prawns and noodles into a large saucepan and bring to boil, then simmer on low heat for 3-4 minutes.
  500 ml good fish or chicken stock, 125 ml homemade prawn stock from the shells, 2 cloves garlic, 3 cm ginger, 4 handfuls mixed vegetables, 5 large shiitake mushrooms, ½ tsp fish sauce, dash of ground white pepper
• Add the prawns and cook for 2-3 minutes until they're done.
  200 g fresh prawns
• Add the noodles and cook for one minute (remember, al dente, you don't want mush). Check and adjust seasoning.
  300 g wet rice noodles, 400g if you're hungry!
• Divide equally into 2 warmed large bowls and top with all the "to serve" ingredients.
  1 handful beansprouts, 2 spring onions, small bunch fresh coriander, ½ a lime, 1 red chilli

Variations

• Replace the prawns with lean chicken breast meat, cut in bitesize pieces.
• Add a couple of bruised lemongrass (or half tsp paste), half tsp galangal paste and a couple of lime leaves to the broth and you've got a Thai style noodle dish.
• To the Thai influenced variation, add about 100ml coconut milk for yet another dish.

Prawn Stock

• Clean the prawns. Twist the head off carefully, leaving the rest of the shell on. The intestinal vein that runs along the back of the prawn should be visible and just sticking out. Give it a firm but gentle pull if you prefer to eat your prawns without.
• If you prefer your prawns completely without shell on, by all means, strip it naked, but keep the head and shell for the stock.
• When done, give all the heads a clean by squeezing the gunk out and rinsing them. Then place all the heads and shells if you’ve removed them into a saucepan, add 250ml (1 cup) water simmer for 30 minutes, strain and use.
• You can add a little garlic, ginger, spring onions, Chinese rice wine or white pepper to flavour the stock. But I prefer to keep mine as is and add flavourings according to the recipe I'm using. Certainly in this case.