Tom Yam Goong
Tom Yam Soup.
Thai hot and sour soup.
I learnt this as one of the dishes from my trip to Chiang Mai. After coming back, I’ve tried to make it a few times. The first few times were quite alright, but the latest, was so so. Coz I didn’t proportioned the raw ingredients correctly, it ended up with a few trips to the shop again. So if its the first few times you made this, make sure you have spare ingredients around.
The first few times I made this soup, I used the ready-made stock from knotts. Its better then some other brands as it doesn’t have that much artificial flavouring in it. I saw it going for SGD3.10 per litre. If you want to make the stock from raw ingredients, you are free to do so. I used chicken bones and prawn peelings to make the stock
Here is the full recipe. Serves 4
Thai Fish Sauce
Prawns
The ingredients
300g (2 cups) prawns - washed, peeled and deveined. Keep the peelings
750ml (3cups) water or chicken stock
6 cloves of crushed garlic
6 shallots - sliced
2 stalks of lemongrass - lower 1/3 only. Slice into 2cm pieces
10 thin slices of ginza - skin removed (Ginza is a form of ginger, common called blue ginger. Can use common ginger to substitute)
200g straw mushrooms - cut in half (can use canned or canned button mushrooms as well)
2 tomatoes - each cut into 8 pieces
20 small green chillies - cut in 1/2 lengthways (test out yourself to see how spicy you like your soup)
45mls (3 tablespoons) fish sauce
5 kaffir lime leaves - torn into pieces discarding the stem
30mls (2 tablespoons) lime juice
10g coriander - chopped (optional since some people don’t like)
Method
Put the heads and peelings of the prawns in a pan with water and bring to the boil. Remove the prawn peelings from the pan and bring the stock back to boil.
Add the garlic, shallots, lemongrass and ginza and bring to boil.
Add mushrooms and tomatoes and bring back to boil.
Add the chillies and fish sauce followed by the kaffir lime leaves.
Cook gently for 2 minutes, then add the prawns and cook for about 1 minute. You can add in chicken breasts as well.
Turn off the head and stir in the lime juice. Serve garnished with the coriander.
My blog : http://singaporemind.blogspot.com
Why go through all that trouble? I can whip up A-grade tomyam with just tomyam powder sold at NTUC.
because if you do not have tomyam powder, you can still make the soup.
Also, I guess you are not that passionate about food either.
I totally agree with mandrake…nowadays ppl are too lazy to make an effort to cook a meal..everything rely on the ready made stuffs. Not that they are not good but some of the food still needs the original ingredients and ways to make it..
helo larkie tan. did u comment just to get yourself the shameless plug? heh.
oh wait. dun think you’d admit it cuz youre shameless? harhar
where to get that Thai fish paste?? usual supermarket??? sometimes, i want to make something from scratch… but the thing is: supermarket these days only sell instant packs and powders that i cant find all the ingredients i need to make them from scratch… you get wat i mean???
Thai Fish sauce.. you can get it at NTUC too. Worse come to worse, go Golden Mile, sure have one. They say the darker, the better it is.
YL: Yes I get what you mean. Unless your requirements are really unique, most of the stuff can get readily. If not, try to look for substitute. Unless you are talking about seasonal stuff which Singapore doesn’t have. Care to give an example of what you are missing?
i once had difficultes finding rosemary and black pepper… i went to NTUC and see empty shelves where the herbs are supposed to be. i went to shop N save and see empty shelves as well. and i could never find any fettuccine in my heartlander neighbourhood supermarket…
You can get fresh rosemary from the vege dept. If not, just get dried ones. Black pepper should be quite common.
Experiment with different brands of black pepper as some are not worth the money. They have no smell or taste not as great. Good black peppers should have a pungent smell when you open it and taste great.
For these kind of foodstuff, I recommend you get from Cold Storage or Jason or from those bigger supermarkets. Neighbourhood stores don’t really stock these stuff as the percentage of people buying it is very low.
yeah… i kinda smarten up about that now… and i realised: some supermarkets are not that super after all… but then again, that was like… my virgin cooking attempt years back??