Recipes From Thailand — Hot and Sour Prawn Soup

During my trip to Thailand I had the opportunity to visit the Thai Orchid Cookery School in Chiang Mai, along with the rest of the group of students that were traveling with me. In a new series of posts, I plan on introducing one new authentic recipe from Thailand, once a month.

The first recipe that I’m going to share is for Hot and Sour Prawn Soup. I personally did not create this dish while at the cooking school, but one of the other students did, I tasted it, and it was fantastic! I hope you enjoy!

Hot and Sour Prawn Soup (Tom Yum Goong)

(Servers 2)

Ingredients for making prawns stock
200g raw prawns
4 cups of water or vegetable stock (cabbage, carrot and coriander)

Remove the prawn heads. Peel the prawns’ shell, leaving the tails intact. Using a sharp knife, slit each prawn down the back and deveined. Keep heads and shells, set the prawns aside.
Make stock by putting the heads and shells of prawns in the boiling water with vegetables and bring back to boil for 5-10 minutes until they are deep orange.

Ingredients for making hot and sour prawn soup
1 tablespoon of Galangal or Thai ginger – skin remove / thick slices
2 kaffir lime leaves – rip off the stem and torn into pieces
2 stalks of lemongrass – slice into 1 inch long
2 cloves of garlic – finely chopped
2 shallots – peeled and sliced
1 lime – cut into 3 wedges
50g straw mushrooms – cut into quarter or can be any mushroom
1 tomato – cut into 8 peices
1-5 small green chilies – finely chopped

Seasoning
2 tablespoons – fish sauce

Method

Remove the prawn peelings and bring the stock back to the boil.
Add all the vegetable into the post, except lime then boil them for 2 minutes and follow by prawns and fish sauce.
Cook for 10-20 seconds until prawns are completely cooked through then turn the heat off and add lime juice.
Stir well and serve, can sprinkle coriander over for garnish.

Notes

This menu can be good with other kinds of seafood or chicken.
For creamy version, can add 2 teaspoons of Tom Yum paste or Thai chili paste and half a cup of coconut cream or plain condensed milk.