This is one of my favourite Thai soups and the first time I have made it from scratch. It also brings back memories of a certain lady..Keeleigh who when she visited us could not get enough of this fabulous soup.
Ingredients:
- 2 litres of water
- 4 stalks of lemongrass
- 1-inch chunk of galangal
- 10 kaffir lime leaves
- 10 Thai chillies
- 5 cloves of garlic
- 500 gm Prawns
- 300 grams of oyster mushrooms
- 2 medium tomatoes cut into quarters.
- 2 white onions (medium-sized) cut into large chunks.
- 1 and a half tsp of sugar
- 7 – 10 tbsp of fish sauce (depending on your taste)
- Juice of 5 -8 limes.
- Handful of cilantro ( Coriander)
N.B Next time I will use shallots instead of white onions and I recommend using the lowest amount of limes and fish sauce and Taste! Adjust if necessary as everyone’s taste varies.
Let’s Cook!
The first thing to do is put about 2 litres of water in a large pot to boil.
Then I like to start by squeezing my limes. This is not the first step of the recipe, but it’s best to have your limes squeezed so when you need them later, you don’t need to rush to squeeze them all.
Take your stalks of lemongrass, and first tear off the outermost leaf and throw it out. Then, I like to use a rolling-pin or the handle end of a knife to lightly pound the lemongrass to release the flavours. Then just slice it diagonally into 1-inch strips or so.
Take about 1 thumb-sized chunk of the root part of galangal, and chop it into slices.
Coarsely break about 10 kaffir lime leaves – no need to cut them, just tear them – which is going to help release their flavour.
Peel about 5 cloves of garlic.
I used about 10 Thai birds eye chillies for this recipe, but you can use however many you’d like. First, take off the stem, and then you can either just slice them in two pieces, or give them a little pound on your cutting board like I did (just be careful of flying seeds). You can also remove the seeds if you’d still like the chilli flavor but not as much heat.
Throw the lemongrass, galangal, kaffir lime leaves, garlic and chillies into the water.
You can put the lid on just so it starts to boil which releases the herb flavours quicker.
Now prepare your prawns I remove everything except for the tail…..others put in whole prawns…personal preference.
Boil your soup with all the herbs in it for about 10 minutes.
Then add your mushrooms, which you should pre rinse beforehand.
Cook for 4-5 minutes.
.Add tomatoes and onions.
Cook for further 6-8 minutes.
Now add prepared prawns and cook for 2-3 mins max( if overcooked the prawns will sink to the bottom of the pan. If you get any scum on the surface of soup it’s from the prawns then just skim off with a spoon.
Remove from heat and stir in fish sauce, lime juice, sugar and cilantro.
Taste and adjust if necessary.
This delicious soup is now ready to serve.
You will notice that this soup does not have the bright orange colour of many of the Tom Yum soups which you have in restaurants it is because either a Tom Yum paste or stock cube is used and it is not made from scratch.
This soup can also be made with chicken and coconut milk which is also a popular variation and known as Tom Ka Gai (Coconut Chicken Soup)
J
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Carol Taylor will be back in the New Year with the Food and Cookery Column after a well earned Christmas break.
