Can’t blog: cooking Fragrant Sour & Spicy Thai Soup

by tigtog on July 13, 2009

in Uncategorized

This soup has much the same base as a Laksa, but not so much coconut cream. I tend to use low fat versions of the coconut and chicken stock, but that’s an option. Fresh Asian vegetables can be used instead of tinned, or one could use tinned Asian mushrooms instead of fresh. This really is best with chicken. The lemongrass is the fragrance, the kaffir lime gives the sourness, and the red curry paste gives the spice. Excellent for when one has a cold.

1 400 ml tin coconut cream
1 tblsp Thai red curry paste
1 teasp Asian shrimp paste
2 litres chicken stock
500 grams finely diced chicken (thighs/breasts/tenderloins)
6 kaffir lime leaves
2 teasp finely sliced lemongrass roots
250grams fresh Asian mushrooms, finely chopped
2 425grams tins mixed Asian vegetables (bean sprouts/bamboo shoots/baby corn etc)
vermicelli rice noodles
1 tblsp Thai fish sauce
fresh coriander to garnish

Make sure the coconut cream has been standing long enough for the thick cream to rise. Scoop the coconut cream off the top of the tin and place in a large pot on a moderate heat.

Allow the coconut cream to bubble and reduce by 1/3. Add shrimp paste and curry paste and allow coconut mixture to reduce further until spices smell cooked. (Chop chicken now)

Add chicken and stir through coconut spice mixture until meat whitens. Add coconut milk remaining in tin and simmer. Add kaffir lime leaves and lemongrass. Add chicken stock slowly, 1 cup at a time so that soup mixture never goes off simmer.

Now put lid on pot and allow soup to simmer for 30 minutes. Chop mushrooms now, and add after 20 minutes.

5 minutes before serving, add tinned Asian vegetables, fish sauce and vermicelli noodles. Stir through and allow cook for the 5 minutes.

Serve with a garnish of fresh coriander.

This soup is credited by a neighbour with provoking her longed-for labour! didn’t work when she tried for the same effect a second time though. Colour me skeptical.

Tagged as: cooking, food/drink, fragrant, sour, spicy, thai soup

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This article was written by tigtog

tigtog (aka Viv) lives in Sydney, Australia: husband, 2 kids, cat, house, garden, just enough wine-racks and (sigh) far too few bookshelves. Viv web-wrangles for hire and edits Gagging For It (Oz Comedy News). tigtog is the founder of Hoyden About Town and Finally, A Feminism 101 Blog.

tigtog has written 1873 posts for Hoyden About Town. If you liked this post, you might like to subscribe to the feed via RSS or EMAIL to get instantly updated for more posts like this.

{ 3 comments }

1 Mary July 13, 2009 at 8:20 pm: If I have a desire to bring on labour I am going to go with Tom Yum Goong, which is not unlike this but without the coconut cream and with nam prig pow in place of red curry. But the version we make at home just isn’t doing it for me yet like the variants I can get at good Thai places. (Ying Thai 2 on Lygon St in Melbourne for example.) Yet to be tested on a woman past 40 weeks gestation though.
2 DeusExMacintosh July 13, 2009 at 8:46 pm: We’ve recently had a Malaysian family start up a little restaurant in Edinburgh and I’d recommend the Sambal Chicken as most likely to clear the human system (of any invading parasite/virus/bacteria/baby) whilst still remaining edible. Just don’t spill any or it’ll eat through your floorboards.
3 Ariane July 13, 2009 at 10:13 pm: Reminds me of a lovely mish-mash of Charmaine Solomon’s red curry, green curry and tom kah gai. Must give that a try. The 6 yr old officially approved of standard red curry beef last night (I make it pretty mild out of big red chillies for non-chili eaters). Making a variation with chicken (and lemongrass!) should be a winner too.