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| This is what it looked like at the cooking school. Let's see if we can replicate it! |
A quick blog on our recreation of a recipe we learned to make at our Thai cooking class: Tom Yum Goong - Hot and Sour Prawn Soup.
(Thanks to Silom Thai Cooking School, who taught the class and sent us home with a cookbook, from which I pulled this recipe!)
Note: we doubled the recipe and it made enough for 2 dinners and 1 lunch. (My lunch, thanks Jacob!)
Ingredients
- 8-10 medium sized prawns (or, you know, more) - peeled & de-veined
- Mushrooms - we used about 4 medium shiitake mushrooms - trimmed & quartered
- 1 stalk lemon grass, pounded a few times and cut into inch long pieces
- 3 kaffir lime leaves, torn in half
- 10 slices of galangal ginger (centimeter chunks?)
- 1/2 Tbsp fish sauce
- 14/ Tbs lime or lemon juice
- 1 cup water or chicken stock
- 1/2 or 1 tomato, cut into 8
- 1/2 Tbsp Thai chili paste
- 2-3 Tbsp coconut milk (we made our own at the school, but went the canned route at home!)
- Thai chilies, however many you dare, cut into 4
- Cilantro, chopped
- Green onions, chopped
Instructions
- In wok, put lemongrass, ginger, lime leaves, mushrooms, tomatoes and chopped chilies into water and bring to boil, cook until tender.
- Add prawns, cook until tender (pink)
- Add coconut milk, lime juice, fish sauce and chili paste
- Serve hot, garnish with cilantro and green onions
Pics and Pointers
Prawns both look weird and take a long time to prepare.
It took me about half an hour to get them from this:
To this:
We bought ours at the wet market ($7 per pound!). Next time I'll see if I can get them peeled and/or de-veined when I buy them. By the way, 'de-vein' really means de-poop. So you remove the heads, peel the shrimp by sort of grasping one set of legs and unwrapping over the top. Generally, it seems like the tails are left on during cooking, but you can take them off. To de-poop, take a sharp knife and slice right down the back of the shrimp, then use your fingers to remove the maybe brown, maybe green string. Of poop. Wash your hands about 12 times during this whole process.
In the mean time, have your friend chop all the non-poopy veggies and aromatics. Ooh, buzz word! In our cooking class, we learned that there are 4 main types of ingredients: Protein (meat, fish, soy), Vegetables/filler (add what you like - the fillers here were mushrooms and tomatoes), Seasoning (spices, sauces) and Key Ingredients (aromatics like lemongrass, ginger, kaffir lime leaves). Our chef said that the protein and veggies can be changed around but that you cannot make a recipe correctly without the right seasonings and key ingredients. |
| Choppin' |
However, if you can't get your hands on galangal ginger, I'm willing to bet regular ginger will pass alright! Not sure if lemongrass has a substitute.
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| Boiling the first ingredients. Stir casually throughout the whole cooking process. |
Word to the wise: unless, like my husband, you can't get food spicy enough, don't chop the chilies up tiny like we did. If you leave them as big chunks, they will still flavor the dish, but you can pick them out. And your spice-ically challenged dinner-mate is less likely to break out in chili-sweats.
Keep cookin'! It's ok if it boils up a bunch, that's good.
It's ok to add extra coconut milk, THAT'S good.
Serve and enjoy as an appetizer soup or as a full meal. Rice is a nice accoutrement.
Don't forget to add the cilantro and green onions, which you already chopped, or when you start cleaning up after dinner, you'll feel really silly. Oops!
Final product = delicious! Even without the garnishes.
When you eat, remember not to eat the chunks of ginger, lemongrass, and lime leaves. It might feel like you're pulling out half the ingredients, but they've already done their job and you can taste them in the complex flavors of the soup.
Whether you try to make it, buy it in a restaurant, or just look at the pictures, I hope you enjoy this introduction to Tom Yum Goong! Cuz we sure did...tom nom nom.
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