The cure for swine flu

It's pretty simple. I'm not entirely sure if it works yet but anything that sets your sweat glands going and your nose streaming at such a high rate is bound to clear a cold.

I don't really know what I'll call it, except 'an alternative to packet Jewish chicken noodle soup', as it's what I had instead of packet Jewish chicken noodle soup.



1x small clove of garlic
1/2 red chili
a thumb-sized piece of ginger
1 small spring onion
600ml boiling water
1/2 cube chicken stock or packet noodle soup powder.
1 1/2 tablespoons of sesame oil
1 nest of rice noodles
5 kaffir lime leaves
a handful of dried seaweed
3 tablespoons of fish sauce
a handful of frozen peas
a small handful of peanuts
a tablespoon of dried chili flakes
1 medium egg
some soy sauce

In retrospect, the seaweed was fucking weird. And the whole thing needed some lime. So don't put seaweed in, put lime in instead. Egg should be optional really.

A fairly simple recipe: Finely chop the ginger, garlic, chili and spring onion. Heat a tablespoon of sesame oil. Chuck in the ginger and garlic. Fry it off for a bit, then chuck in the spring onion. Pour in the boiling water. If you want to use seaweed, put it in here. Wait for it to absorb some water and soften before putting in the noodles peas, lime leaves and some fish sauce. After a minute and a half, pour it into a bowl. Put some more fish sauce in the bowl.

Slightly unnessecary behaviour: Pour some sesame oil and chili flakes into the pan, fry them off for half a minute then add in some boiling water. Pour this over the noodles in the bowl.

Unnessecary behaviour: Then toast some crushed peanuts and chuck them on the noodles.

Indecent ruining of a nice meal: Fry an egg, chuck that on top of all the noodles and use the fresh chili, fish sauce and lime to garnish.

All of this was inspired by Rick Stein's 'Far Eastern Odyssey' which is perfect viewing when you feel ill. All the garlic, ginger and chili made me not know if my nose was running or my philtrum sweating. Sweating helps to rid your body of unhealthy viruses as it encourages your cells to work in overdrive. Apparently. Chili gets the metabolism going, too, so all the vegging out and eating biscuits whilst ill won't catch up on you if you get this soup in your face hole.

And if all this fails to cure you, the egg, which will inevitably be undercooked in a mad effort to not make the noodles too soggy, will send you straight to the hospital, where you'll be safe.