Thai food series: Tom Yum recipe

We learned this Tom Yum recipe when we were staying in Phuket in Miss Chel’s Thai Cooking Class. For our review of the class, check out this post.

Tom Yum is a hot and sour Thai soup usually cooked with shrimp (Tom Yum Goong). It is derived from the words Tom, the boiling process, and Yam, a Thai spicy and sour salad. There are two different ways to prepare this soup: the traditional, which is more spicy and colorless, and the commercial, which has an added chili paste which adds sweetness and a red colouring and evaporated or coconut milk to counteract the spiciness. There are versions of this soup including chicken, pork, beef or fish.

Ingredients

• 4 king prawns peeled and vein-removed.
• 1 cup of chicken stock.
• 1 stalk of lemongrass cut in large diagonal slices.
• 2 kaffir lime leaves with the hard core removed and torn.
• 3 straw mushrooms washed and cut into quarters (can be substitu
• ted by other mushrooms).
• 5 bird’s eye chillies, crushed.
• 1 tablespoon of fish sauce.
• 1 shallot, crushed.
• 1 tablespoon freshly squeezed lime juice.
• 1 tablespoon thinly sliced galangal (or ginger).
• 2 springs coriander leaves.
• 1 spring onion.
• 1 tablespoon chilli paste roasted (optional).
• 2 tablespoon evaporated milk or coconut milk (optional).
• 1/2 tomato quartered.
• 1/2 teaspoon white sugar.

How to make this Tom Yum recipe

1. Bring the cup of chicken broth to boil over medium heat. Add lemongrass, galangal, shallot and kaffir lime leaves. Cook until fragrant.
2. Add prawns, tomato and mushrooms and cook until prawns turn red.
3. Combine rosted chilli paste (optional), bird’s eye chilli, lime juice sugar and fish sauce and stir until disolved. Remove other ingredients from fire and add the resulting paste.
4. Garnish with spring onion and coriander.

Recipe tip: add the lime juice when the soup is no longer on the fire. Cooked lime juice adds a bitter taste that unbalances the recipe.

Traditional Tum Yum with prawns

Commercial Tom Yum with fish.

You can book your class with Miss Chel in her website and find more recipes in this post:

→ Thai food: Miss Chel’s thai cooking class in Phuket

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