Ivie Here!
I attempted to make a Tom Kha Gai soup on Wednesday night. Have you tried it before? I love the flavors in this soup. You can find it on the menu of most Thai restaurants and I figured, it couldn’t be that hard! This soup is also known as Thai Chicken Soup. It is relatively healthy and you just throw all the ingredients into the same pot and 30 minutes later – you have SOUP! I also made brown rice to pour the soup over. My husband has never had the real thing at a restaurant, this is something I must remedy. He found the version I made “good”, but agreed on the changes I want to make.
While eating the soup, I was working out a plan for the next version already, as I said, there were definitely changes that I want to make. Two major changes are more veggies (maybe a red bell pepper, some onions, or green onions) and another can of coconut milk. The 2 recipes that I flipped back and forth from, while making the soup were Bon Appetit and All Recipes. I didn’t really measure out anything. I basically “Chopped” and “Dumped” the ingredients into the pot, and added more of the foods I like.
I started by pulling everything out and putting it on the cutting board for Picture time:
All the flavors!
The base of the soup was chicken stock and coconut milk. My husband did the grocery shopping for me and accidentally picked up a can of “light” coconut milk, so the soup was not as creamy as I would have liked. I put more ginger in the soup than the recipe called for and added some HOT peppers to kick up the heat.
Ingredients: chicken stock, coconut milk, chicken thighs, mushrooms (crimini and oytster), lemon grass, lime zest and juice, ginger, hot peppers, garlic, honey, basil, cilantro and fish sauce.
I did not have fish sauce, so I improvised with oyster sauce, soy sauce and Worcestershire sauce. I also added a tablespoon of green curry paste and honey to sweeten. Lastly, there was salt and pepper.
Chopping and Dumping!
I started simmering the chicken stock with the following: lemon grass, one of the habaneros that had a couple of slits in it, and lime juice. I chopped the other ingredients (garlic, ginger, habanero, mushrooms, and chicken) while this was going on. Some recipes called for the ginger to be cut into chunks and cooked in the soup and removed before eating, but I like ginger, so I finely chopped my ginger and left it in to eat.
Everything in the Pot! Rice is cooking too!
Once everything was in the pot, I added the coconut milk and let it all meld together, crossing my fingers and hoping I was making a rich and flavorful soup. I tasted the broth occasionally and adjusted flavors with more salt, lime juice, etc.
Dinner is served!
I garnished our plates with chopped cilantro and basil, as well as a slice of lime for more flavor. As you can see, I served the soup over brown rice. This is definitely an option!
What is your favorite soup? Have you tried a similar recipe to this? How did it turn out?
the two taste buddies 