An Authentic Thai Soup, Tom Yum Goong

By Bonbini

I normally make this soup with a ready-made tom yum paste, just because it's convenient so that I'll have more time to do the baking. To make this soup from scratch, you will need some specific ingredients to get its real flavor.

Tom yum can be cooked in 3 different ways; with coconut milk, with evaporate milk and without any milk. I like cooking it with coconut milk. But today I want the lighter version, so I cook it with evaporate milk.

Most restaurants here serve tom yum without any milk. I think the reason is they don't want customer to be confused between tom yum and tom kha. Tom kha is always cooked with coconut milk. It has exactly the same ingredients as tom yum, except chili paste.

Ingredients

• 10-15 - 10-15 prawns, peeled
• 2 - 2 cups chicken broth
• 1 - 1 stalk lemongrass, cut into 1" long
• 5 - 5 slices galangal
• 5 - 5 kaffir lime leaves, split
• 5 - 5 shallots, halved
• 5 - 5 fresh Thai chilies, crushed
• 5 - 5 dried red pepper, soak in warm water and crushed
• 1/2 - 1/2 cup carrot, sliced
• 1/4 - 1/4 cup celery, sliced
• 1/4 - 1/4 cup straw mushroom
• 3 - 3 tb. fish sauce
• 2 - 2 lime juice
• 3 - 3 tb. chili paste or nam prik pao
• 1 - 1 cup evaporate milk
• 1/4 - 1/4 cup cilantro

Details

Servings 3

Preparation

Step 1

1. Bring chicken broth, lemongrass, galangal, kaffir lime leaves, shallot and both chilies to a boil.
2. Add carrot, celery and mushroom.
3. Add fish sauce and lime juice.
4. Mix chili paste with evaporate milk, then add into the soup
5. Add prawns.
6. As soon as prawns turn pink, remove from the heat and garnish with cilantro.