Ingredients for 5-6 servings:

• 1/3 cup of self made red curry paste: 2-3 dry red chilli peppers, a 2cm piece of galangal or ginger, 2 shallots, 4-5 gloves of garlic, 1 teaspoon of shrimp paste, 3 stalks of lemongrass, 2 tablespoons of vegetable oil
• 400ml coconut milk
• 500gr chicken necks for 1 liter of chicken stock
• 3-4 kafir leaves
• 1kg butternut pumpkin, or a mixture of regular and butternut pumpkin
• 2-3 tablespoons of fish sauce
• 1 tablespoon of lime juice or lemon juice
• 800gr shrimps
• 200gr clamshell or oyster mushrooms
• Garnishes: finely chopped green onion, red chili pepper, cilantro, basil, watercress

Preparation:

• First, we will prepare the chicken stock. Remove the chicken skin before cooking, otherwise your stock will be too fat. Then, soak the chicken in cold water for 30 minutes to remove blood. Bring water to the boil in a large pot. Add the chicken and cook for just 20-30 seconds. Pour off water from the pot and rinse the chicken thoroughly.
• Add 1 litre cold water to the pot with the chicken and bring to the boil. Skim off foam, and once the stock starts boiling, immediately turn the heat down. After about 15 minutes of simmering, add 3-4 kafir leaves and woody parts of the lemongrass stalks to the stock (set tender parts of the lemongrass aside, as we will use them for the red curry paste). Continue to simmer gently for about 30-40 minutes, skimming as necessary, then pass the stock through a fine sieve. Remove chicken pieces from the pan and separate meat from bones. Set the chicken meat aside.
• Now, we will prepare the red curry paste. Mix in a blender: 3 dry red chilli peppers, a 2cm piece of galangal or ginger, 2 shallots, 4-5 gloves of garlic, 1 teaspoon shrimp paste, 2 tablespoons vegetable oil and 3 stalks of lemongrass (only tender parts). Note: we can make our curry paste more spicy by adding more (or less) red chilli peppers to the mix.
• Finally, we will cook the soup. Peel and cut the pumpkin into pieces. In a large saucepan, heat up the oil on medium heat, add curry paste to the pan and stir for 4-5 minutes. Then, add the chicken stock and pumpkin and cook for 8–10 minutes until the pumpkin is tender. Remove the pan from a stove and blend the pumpkin with a hand blender. Peel and devein shrimps. Add shrimps, mushrooms and chicken meat to the pan and cook for another 3-4 minutes on low heat. Add coconut milk, fish sauce and lemon juice, turn off the heat and stir well.

Garnish the soup with finely chopped green onion, red chili pepper, basil, cilantro and watercress before serving. Enjoy!