Tom Yum Soup

I had my first encounter with tom yum when I worked at a Thai restaurant in college. I of course had to become acquainted with the menu, not that it was exactly a chore, and first tried the tom kha, a richer coconut-y version of tom yum. I much preferred to tom yum at the time. When I had some difficulty remembering which was which when customers ordered, I even started using the "tom yum is NOT the yummy soup!" mnemonic to help me remember.

I was wrong, of course. Tom yum is SO DELICIOUS. It is tangy, spicy, savory. The perfect appetizer soup because it is so fresh tasting and broth based, so you don't feel full by the time your main course arrives. It's not hard to make but the ingredients aren't your typical household staples.

(4-6 servings)

Ingredients:

:: 2 cups chicken or shrimp stock
:: 3 cups water
:: 2 lemongrass
:: 1 inch of galanga, cut into 3 disc shaped pieces
:: juice of 1 limes to taste
:: 4 tablespoons tom yum paste
:: 2-3 kaffir lime leaves
:: 1 tablespoon fish sauce
:: 1/2 package medium tofu, chopped into 1/2 inch cubes
:: 1 can straw mushrooms, rinsed and drained, cut in half lengthwise (to divide the cap)
-OR- substitute tofu, mushrooms for shrimp, chicken, or nothing at all.
:: thai red chiles to taste
:: cilantro for garnish

SIDEBAR: I made my own shrimp stock for the soup, but only because I didn't have any at home and had a lot of leftover shrimp shells that I never have the heart to throw away. These shells can be difficult to extract later on, so it's useful to have a cloth spice sack or something of that nature just to hold them in one place for easy extraction at the end of the stock making process. I boiled shells from 1 pound of shrimp along with an onion and carrot in 4 cups of water until the vegetables got super soft, at which point I removed the shrimp shells. I added about a cup of chicken stock just because that's what I had laying around the fridge, and went from there. I think that chicken stock would work just fine in this (low sodium, preferably!) but I rarely make the soup without making the pad thai, so I usually start from my own shrimp stock base. Understandably this is an extra pain in the butt, and otherwise I just use a 1:1 ratio of stock to water to begin the soup with. End sidebar.

Back to the soup...

And herein lies the beauty of most soups. You can make them way in advance. In this case, I made the broth after lunch and let it hang out on the stove for a while. Or the night before, or a few days before, whenever you have a chance.

When dinner was 30 minutes away, I combined all the ingredients except for the tofu and mushrooms. I added the lemongrass (the stick-y thing in the right middle of the picture), galanga (the brown ginger-like ingredient in the top right of the picture), the juice of one lime, 1 tablespoon of fish sauce, and 4 tablespoons of tom yum paste. I was hesitant to add in the chiles just yet in case I wasn't able to control the spice level and it got too out of hand.

If you'll notice, I have no kaffir lime leaves in the picture. Hard enough to find in normal circumstances, the store owner informed me that kaffir lime leaves are currently illegal to sell in supermarkets. I have no idea if this is true or not but he is probably a better authority on supermarket-able goods than I, so maybe you'll have better luck. It really is nice to have the leaves because they have a very un-substitutable fresh, tangy flavor, but just make do with what you have.

I have used tom yum paste in my recipe, which many recipes 'from scratch' do not use. The intensity of the flavors has been difficult to achieve if I do not use it, but I hope that adding in fresh ingredients of my own makes the soup taste like it is not prepackaged. I think it's delicious and doesn't suffer from having the paste added in (the paste itself is just a mixture of chiles, kaffir lime leaf, lemongrass, galanga, etc anyway, just in a more potent mixture).

The mushrooms I cut in half because 1) they're a little large for bite-size pieces and 2) my family pointed out to me that it makes the ingredients seem to stretch farther. I added those in with the bite-size tofu 5 minutes before dinner, just long enough to warm them through without getting soggy.

I'd like to take a moment to stress the importance of tasting as you cook. You may find that the ingredient portions I use are not suited to you, that you like your soup a little saltier, a little spicier, more vegetarian, whatever. This recipe was largely based on tasting and thinking "Hmm that could use more _____." Go with your gut! Usually you will be right...as long as you TASTE before you ADD.

Add some cilantro for garnish... serve with a giant soup spoon!