Tom Yam Goong

Hello, it’s Kay here from the Not Delia foodie blog www.notdelia.co.uk. I’m delighted to be a guest blogger on FFFY, and hope to do many more guest postings. I love cooking and I suppose you could say that my speciality is Thai food. I’ve made Tom Yam Goong for you, a Thai classic, which translates as hot and sour prawn soup.

I got the recipe from renowned Thai chef and cookery school owner, Somphon Nabnian, many years ago when I had the privilege of attending his cooking classes in Chiang Mai in Thailand. By the way, I’ve given the recipe in its original form, but even I baulked at 20 chillies and I love spicy Thai food. Just go easy on them and remember it’s a lot easier to add something than it is to take it away.

I only made half of the quantities given because there’s only two of us in the household. Also, note where Somphon says “lemon juice”, it’s more likely that he meant lime, because lemons are quite rare to find in Thailand. Ginza is just another name for galangal – it’s quite like ginger so if you can’t get galangal you could substitute ginger, but it won’t have quite the same taste. And so without further ado – here it is.

Tom Yam Goong

Serves 4

300g (10¾ oz) prawns – washed, peeled and deveined (NB keep the peelings)
750ml (3 cups, 24 fl oz) water
2 stalks of lemongrass – lower third only, sliced into 3cm (1 inch) pieces
5 kaffir lime leaves – torn into pieces discarding the stem
3 shallots – sliced
3 cloves of garlic – crushed
2 tomatoes – each one cut into 8 pieces
5 thin slices of ginza – skin removed
300g (3 cups, 10¾ oz) straw mushrooms – cut in half
20 small, green chillies – cut in half lengthways
45ml (3 tbsp) fish sauce
30ml (2 tbsp) lemon juice
coriander – chopped

Put the peelings in a pan with the water and bring to the boil. Strain the stock, discarding the peelings. (I also added the heads – they make the stock a bit tastier.)

Bring the stock back to the boil and add the lemongrass, kaffir lime leaves, shallots, garlic, tomatoes and ginza and bring to the boil. Then add the mushrooms and bring back to the boil and then add the chillies and fish sauce. Cook gently for 2 minutes, add the prawns and reheat to boiling.

When the prawns are cooked turn off the heat and stir in the lemon juice. Serve garnished with the coriander.

Note

If you do not have fresh prawns use chicken stock or plain water for the stock.

This can also be made using chicken, pork, fish, mixed seafood or tofu instead of prawns. If you use chicken or pork, the meat should be added before the mushrooms.

If you do not want it to be too spicy, leave the chillies whole.

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