Now that the weather is cooling down here in Melbourne, I’m turning back to my soup recipes to feed the hungry hordes at our place (7 year old boy and husband are always ravenous)!

A family favourite is a recipe I discovered in a Weight Watcher’s cookbook of all places…it’s perfect for a weeknight as it’s simple to prepare, and it’s nice and healthy.

Ingredients: (Serves 4)

1 litre chicken stock

1 litre water

3 large chicken breasts (skin off) or 400 gms chicken mince

2-3 cloves garlic

1 bunch fresh coriander

4-6 spring onions, chopped

1 stick lemongrass – chopped into chunks

1 red chilli finely chopped (this is optional. Kids love this dish so you might want to skip the chilli in this case)

1 chunk ginger, finely chopped (or larger so kids can fish them out if they’re not into it!)

1 bunch choy sum or Chinese broccoli, roughly chopped (inc stalks)

Soy sauce – 2 tablespoons (or to taste)

Fish sauce – 1 tablespoon (or to taste)

Juice of 1 lime

Noodles (optional but great with this dish. You can use anything from 2 minute noodles, or vermicelli to Udon noodles)

Put the stock and water in a large saucepan, together with the ginger, soy sauce, and lemon grass and bring to the boil

In the meantime, blitz your chicken breasts in the food processor together with the garlic and a large handful of coriander, or if you are using chicken mince, you’ll need to get your hands dirty here and crush the garlic, finely chop the coriander and mix these through the mince in a bowl.

Once the stock is boiling, start rolling the chicken mince into balls with your hands (3-4 cms across) and drop them carefully into the stock.

Once they are cooking you can add your noodles (depending which ones you get and how long they take – the chicken dumplings cook in a matter of minutes)

Once the dumplings are done, add the choy sum and the spring onions and cook for a minute or so, then turn off the heat, and stir in the lime juice, fish sauce and a handful of coriander.

Ladle into big bowls and slurp your way to happiness. Enjoy!