Tom Kha Soup
I had a doctors appointment the other day for an Asthma review. Part of these things involves getting weighed and it transpired for all my good work I have backslid a little and put a few pounds back on irritatingly. Crazily, at least according to the BMI, I am now officially overweight again. Seems like nonsense to me, but all the same I don’t really want to backslide.
Therefore had a bit of a re-focus on all things diet and been getting into Thai style soups quite big time. I cooked Nigel Slater’s Tom Yam Gai the other day which was very nice and this encouraged me to experiment a bit a try a Tom Kha soup. I found this lovely, sweet, and fiery hot. Low calorie too! Bosh! Obviously probably not the most authentically Thai dish ever as I have amended it to my tastes.
In truth it actually looked a lot nicer IRL
Serves 2
Ingredients
Paste
Juice and zest of one lime.
4 Kaffir Lime leaves
1 Stick lemongrass
4 cloves garlic
2 ½ Inch cube Galangal (you can use ginger)
1 finger Krachai
5-8 Dried bird eye chillies (depends on taste, this dish should be smokin’, right at the top end of your heat tolerance)
3 tbsp Nam Pla
2 tsp Dark brown sugar
1 small onion
1 small bunch coriander stems and leaves (reserve some leaves for serving)
Small handful thai sweet basil
Soup
2 large white fish fillets (I used Haddock)
1 400ml Can of Light Coconut milk (if oyu are not hard core dieting use full fat. it will be loads nicer)
350ml Stock (Veg, or Chicken)
Big handful oyster mushrooms
Handful sugar snap peas
1 Fresh red and 1 green chilli deseeded and sliced diagonally
8 ripe cherry tomatoes halved
1 ½ stalks lemon grass, bruised and coarsley chopped
Couple of sweet basil leaves and chopped coriander leaf to serve.
Noodles (I used vermicelli, but I think soba noodle or ho-fun would have been much better)
Method
To make the past just whap all the ingredients into a food processor and whoosh around until it is in a nice paste. Whilst this is going chop up your mushrooms, tomatoes and fresh chillies.
Next heat up some oil in a wok and add the paste cooking for a few minutes on a medium heat for a couple of minutes should produce a lovely powerful smell. Once it has been cooking for a couple of minutes add the stock and the coconut milk and allow to simmer for about 10-15 minutes.
Make sure the noodles are ready and then put all the remaining ingredients into the pan and turn the heat up a bit. Cook for 4-5 minutes (depending on the thickness of your fish) servce the noodles at the bottom with the fish fillet on top and soup and vegetables all around. Garnish with some fresh coriander and basil leaves and serve with a ¼ of a lime for people to add juice to taste.
