Thai Chicken-Coconut Soup

Katie, I see your chicken barley soup, and raise you....Thai Chicken-Coconut Soup!
(from Epicurious.com)

They said it makes 4 servings, but I would estimate 5-6

Rice noodles (the recipe never actually says how much, but eyeball it and you can't go wrong)
6 cups low-sodium chicken broth
1–2 red Thai (or jalapeño) peppers, seeded and finely chopped (plus slices for garnish)
3 cloves garlic, chopped
1 tablespoon grated ginger
2 teaspoons grated lemon zest
1 teaspoon grated lime zest
1/4 cup fresh lemon (or lime) juice
4 tablespoons Thai fish sauce, divided
1/2 pound shiitake mushrooms, sliced (3 cups)
2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts (about 5 ounces each), cut into 2 1/2-inch-long by 1/4-inch-wide strips
1 cup light coconut milk
2 cups baby spinach
2 tablespoon chopped cilantro (plus sprigs for garnish)

Place noodles in a bowl; add enough warm water to cover and let sit until soft, about 15 minutes. Drain. Combine broth, pepper, garlic, ginger, lemon zest, lime zest, lemon juice and 3 tablespoon fish sauce in a large pot. Season with salt. Bring to a simmer, add noodles and cook 3 minutes more. Using tongs, transfer noodles to a bowl and cover with foil to keep warm. Add mushrooms to broth; season with salt, if desired; simmer 3 minutes more. Add chicken and coconut milk and simmer, stirring, until chicken is just cooked, about 3 minutes. Stir in spinach until it begins to wilt, about 1 minute. Add chopped cilantro and season with remaining 1 tablespoon fish sauce. Using tongs, divide noodles among 4 bowls. Ladle soup into bowls and garnish with sprigs of cilantro and slices of pepper.

Results:

I'm eating the results right now, and it is heavenly. Much like the other soup I did (Lemon Chicken Soup), this combines salty, citrusy, and creamy flavors. This one just has a little bit of a kick behind it with the ginger and hot peppers. This recipe is a little more labor-intensive then the others I usually use, expecially with the hokey-pokey, in-and-out of the pot with the noodles (necessary b/c rice noodles are fragile and will break up in the hot soup if left in for too long), but start-to-finish was still under 1& 1/2 hour. My changes: I ended up not finding anything but canned green chiles, instead of whole peppers, and I used the entire 4 oz can in this soup. Other variations: I used 2 cups of coconut milk (1 can) instead of 1 cup, and decreased the chicken broth by 1 cup. I also used low-sodium chicken broth. Between that and the fish sauce, I did not need to add any additional salt. I did add, however, additional ginger because you can never have enough ginger in my book. Finally, I saved 1 of the 2 cups of coconut milk until the very end because then you have a fresher taste to the milk.

By the by,
For those interesting in pairing this soup with a wine, might I suggest a brighter white wine, such as Yellow Tail's Pinot Grigio. It's strong enough to stand up for itself, but accents the ginger and citrus without overpowering just beautifully.