Man oh man I love soup. I used to be a Soup Sister, together with one of my besties I sold soup at markets and events. Soups of all kinds, simple vegetable soups, more elaborate stewy soups, from scratch chicken soups. Finished off with lovely toppings like roasted garlic, koriander, basil oil, croutons, grilled chicken, feta etc. Soup must be the most versatile dish of them all.
Strange that we actually never made Tom Kha Gai, to be honest I had no idea it was so simple. Not sure why I’m surprised, most Thai disshes are super simple with super fresh ingredients.
This authentic Tom Kha Gai, inspired by @seonkyounglongest is done within 20 minutes, including all the chopping! So what’s stopping you, get souping!
Tom Kha Gai
(1 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)
Loading...Ingredients
- 500 ml chicken stock
- 1 large lemongrass, roughly pounded
- 50 galangal, chopped in 5 mm slices and pounded
- 2 medium small shallots, finely chopped
- 2 tsp palm sugar or brown sugar, more to taste
- 2 tbsp fish sauce
- 1 can (400 ml) coconut milk
- 1 large tomato
- 150 g mushrooms of choice (for example chestnut mushrooms)
- 2 to 3 lime leaves, tough stems removed
- 1 to 3 Thai chilies, pounded (depending on how hot yo want it)
- 300 g chicken breast or thighs, sliced into bite size pieces
- Juice of 2-3 limes, to taste
- To serve
- 1-2 cups jasmin rice (depending on how hungry you are)
- 2 spring onions onions, chopped
- Handful koriander, roughly chopped
- Red chili, thinly sliced
Instructions
Prepare the rice according to the packaging (see notes) and prepare the rest of the ingredients.
Pour the chicken stock into a medium to large soup pot (a wok would work too)
Add the lemongrass, galangal and shallot.
Bring it to boil over medium high heat and then then add the sugar, fish sauce, coconut milk, tomatoes, mushrooms, lime leaves, Thai chilies and chicken slices.
Stir it all through and bring it to a light simmer. Let it gently simmer 5-6 minutes until the chicken is cooked through.
Turn off the heat and add the lime juice to taste, start with 1/4 cup and add more if you like.
Taste and season with more sugar, lime juice and / or fish sauce if needed.
Serve with the spring onions, koriander and some extra sliced chili if you like.
Serve it with a side of warm steamed rice.
Notes
- My fail free tip for cooking nice fluffy rice without all the measurement hassle:
- Add 1/2 cup of rice pp into a pan and add a pinch of salt.
- Bring water to the boil in a kettle and top off the rice, making sure there is more than enough rice to cook in. If you have 1 cm layer of rice, make sure there's 3 cm water above the rice.
- Boil with the lid on for 8 minutes on medium heat.
- Drain the water out with a colander.
- Add the rice back to the pan and put the lid back on, let it steam for at least another 8 minutes or how long you need to cook your food..
- My fail free tip for cooking nice fluffy rice without exact water measurements:
- Fluff the rice with a fork. And there you have it: super easy perfect fluffy rice!
