I cannot believe that January has already been sneaked by us and we are in the second month of the New Year. I am still referring to the year as New Year because I am yet to get a hang of writing 2015. The way days are passing by, I should soon be practicing to write 2016. This first week’s theme for this month’s Blogging Marathon is accompaniments served in restaurants. We are going to be talking about some dishes that are usually served on the house tab when we are waiting for the food to arrive. Here in the US, I find that Indian restaurants hardly serve anything as ‘on the house’. You pay for anything and everything you order. Italian restaurants commonly have salads and bread served when waiting and I just love that. The recipe I have today is something that they used to serve in one of the Thai restaurants we ate at in New York. They used to serve a small bowl of this Tom Yum soup along with a tiny salad and I used to lick every bit of it. This soup is such a wonderful appetizer that I hope every Thai restaurant serves it as we might become quite hungry to order a lot of food to eat later. Being vegetarian, we would be unable to eat this soup in many places, since they use chicken broth to flavor the soup. When reading about this soup I learned that traditionally this Tom Yum soup is made with plain water and is flavored exclusively with lemon grass, galangal, and kefir lime leaves. Also, the soup is made with mushrooms which lend to the flavor of the soup. We are not used to eating mushrooms and hence I left them out and added tofu and a couple of vegetables and tofu. Check out my other Thai dishes here! Preparation time – 10 minutesCooking time – 30 minutesDifficulty level – easy
Ingredients to make Vegetarian Tom Yum Soup – Makes 4 hearty servings
Water – 6 cups Lemon grass – 2 stalks Galangal – 1-inch piece (sliced) Kefir lime leaves – 3 or 4 (I used lime peel) Shallots – 2 (cut in halves) Carrot – 1 (very finely chopped) Baby Bok Choy – 2 (finely chopped) Tofu – ½ cup (very finely chopped) Thai Chili paste (I used homemade paste) – 1 tablespoon (more or less depending on your taste) Lemon juice – 2 tbsp Salt – to taste Sugar – 1 tsp
Procedure –
Cut the lemongrass into 1-inch pieces and then bruise it or make small cuts on it. Also, prepare the galangal and shallots. I used lime peels in my soup since I could not find Kefir leaves. Place the lemongrass, shallots, lime peels, and galangal in cheesecloth and make a knot.
Place this pouch inside the stock pot with 6 cups of water and bring it to a boil. Let it simmer for about 10 minutes for all the flavors to infuse. You could also drop these ingredients directly in the pot, but make sure you remove them before serving.
Once the Tom Yum soup boils, you will see that the broth looks light brown now and is very aromatic. Now add salt, sugar, and chili paste and mix well. Add the vegetables and tofu and mix.
Let the soup simmer for about 10 more minutes until the carrots cook halfway through. Make sure to leave a crunch in the vegetables.
Remove the pouch from the soup and drain it well.
Ladle the hot Vegetarian Tom Yum soup into bowls and serve!
Thai recipe Ideas
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