Anyone who has visited Thailand has already tried Thai soup with coconut milk Tom Yam. If you are not familiar with this dish, then in our article you will learn about it.
Thai soup Tom Yam with shrimp - the most spicy in the whole world. There have been many studies that have shown that the dish is an excellent cancer prevention. It is because of this dish that Thais rarely suffer from such a disease.
This Thai soup is offered in any cafe and restaurant in Thailand, as well as in many other countries of Southeast Asia. At the same time, each chef makes some adjustment to the dish: adds or removes the ingredient, increases or decreases the amount of some component.
There are several varieties of soup: shrimp, fish, chicken and seafood.
The basis of spicy Thai soup
It is very important that quality ingredients are used to prepare the dish. The base of the soup is a spicy chili paste. You can do it yourself. Buying it in Russia is difficult. It can only be brought from Thailand. It is sold either in packages or in banks. In packages, there is usually a semi-finished product in which you can add aromatic ingredients, such as: kaffir, galangal, lemongrass. The jars produce pure pasta for cooking.
Ingredients
Now you need to describe the ingredients that go into the soup. We will also tell you what can be replaced if they are not available.
So, the ingredients that go into Thai soup are:
- galangal is a type of ginger. It is hard, like a tree, its taste is sharp. Galangal can be seen with ordinary ginger. You can use both fresh and ground from a bag, dried.
- Lemongrass - green stems (about 1 cm in diameter) with a lemon smell. You can replace this component with lemon grass or with a peel of lime or lemon.
- Kaffir (kaffir) - leaves from a lime tree of dark green color. This tree is grown only because of them. You can replace kaffir with leaves of indoor lemon.
- Cilantro (coriander). Used to add flavor. In the winter season, frozen grass is added. You can also use seeds as a substitute.
- Fish sauce. It is added to Thai soup to give a specific smell to it, and also not to pour salt. The sauce has quite original flavors, but in dishes it opens in a new way. He gives a new flavor to every dish. Replace fish sauce with soy.
- Lime juice. It can be easily replaced with lemon juice.
- Straw mushrooms. They can be replaced by other species, for example, shiitake, mushrooms or oyster mushrooms.
- Shrimp Mandatory component. Replacing it is undesirable. In addition to shrimp, you can use other seafood, such as octopus, squid, and others.
- Coconut milk (or coconut cream). This component is optional. It is used to make one of the varieties of Thai soup with a milder taste, which is most likely intended for Europeans. If desired, this ingredient can be replaced with regular cream or milk. You can also completely remove such a component from the dish.
- Chicken meat. This ingredient is optional. It is added to shrimp in order to make the dish more satisfying when there is little seafood in the dish.
As you can see, before you cook Thai soup, you need to stock up on the necessary components. All of them are quite specific, but if desired, they can be replaced with a more familiar alternative.
What is needed for pasta Tom Yam?
If you have not bought the original pasta, then you can make it yourself.
To prepare the paste, you will need the following components:
- one chili pepper (or any other hot);
- one garlic;
- shallots (can be replaced with ordinary onions);
- ginger (the ingredient is optional, but you can still add it to the dish).
Making Pasta For Soup
Pour vegetable oil into the pan, about three to four tablespoons. As you cook, you can pour in more, if it seems that the paste is too thick.
When the oil is warm, throw a few cloves of garlic, finely chopped. It must be fried until golden brown. After catching the garlic, put it separately.
Then, throw one medium head of chopped onion (shallot or onion) into the oil. Also soak in a frying pan until golden. After catching it, put it on the garlic.
Next, add four to five pieces of chili pepper into the same oil, cut into small pieces. Dry it a little in oil (minutes will be enough). After, add the previously fried onions and garlic to the pan. You can add grated ginger there. But this is optional.
Hold the mixture for a while in the pan, stirring constantly. Then remove from heat. Next, grind everything finely in a blender. That's all, our pasta is ready. The consistency should be thick. The cooked mass does not spoil for a long time, you just need to store it in the refrigerator.
How to cook Thai Tom Yam soup at home?
Now we will tell how this dish is prepared. The result will be two servings of Thai food that will please lovers of hot dishes.
Thai soup, the photo of which is presented in the article, is prepared on fish or chicken broth. Although the easiest way, of course, is to cook on chicken. You can use both natural broth and cubes.
In order for the broth to be more rich, add peeled, washed shells and shrimp heads to it. Two servings will require approximately 0.5 liters of broth. Do not salt it, just add fish sauce (1 tablespoon).
In the finished broth, add a piece of galangal seven millimeters thick (or a ginger slice one and a half centimeters thick). Next, throw in there a kaffir (two leaves), a ten centimeter long lemongrass stick (or zest with one lemon).
Boil the resulting mixture for four minutes, so that the seasonings give their taste and aroma. Then take out all the leaves, pieces and sticks, put them on a plate so as not to interfere.
The next step in making hot soup
Next, without removing the broth from the heat, add the paste. Its amount depends on how spicy the dish you want to get in the end. For two portions of soup, one tablespoon with a slide will be enough.
Already when absolutely all the ingredients have been added to the Thai soup, try the dish, if necessary, then throw a little more pasta into the dish.
So, back to cooking. Now the time has come when you need to throw all prepared ingredients into Thai soup, namely: mushrooms (4 pcs), one chili pepper, peeled shrimp and other seafood (400 grams), chicken meat (100 grams), cut into pieces in advance. Also add fish sauce (1 tbsp.) To the dish. Of course, you can not add any ingredients, because each person has his own tastes, but without mushrooms and shrimp, our soup will definitely not work.
If you want the dish to taste a little softer, especially if you put a lot of pasta, add coconut cream or milk (about 100 ml). After cooking the dish for five to seven minutes.
The last stage in the preparation of a fragrant and tasty soup
A few minutes before removing, add a small onion cut in half (peeled, of course), a clove of garlic. If you want to further diversify the taste, then throw another tomato. You can use either a pair of slices of ordinary tomato, or cut into two halves of cherry.
That's it, the Thai Tom Tom soup is ready . The recipe for cooking is not simple. But every housewife will cope with it if desired.
Ready soup is poured on plates, sprinkled with greens on top. Next, add a teaspoon of lemon or lime juice.
I would also like to say that the cooked pasta can be used not only in the cooking process, but also to create other dishes. Pasta is also allowed to be added to ready-made dishes, for example, pasta.
Little conclusion
Now you know how to cook Thai soup Tom Yam, the recipe presented in the article will help you. We hope that you will be able to cook spicy dishes in your kitchen.