Recipe: Tom Ka Gai...

On the weekend Boofy went away with our friend Tony for a boys fishing weekend... they did the usual boy things (jumped in the boat and went fishing, ate a ridiculous amount of snack food and Hungry Jack's for dinner!) and totally enjoyed themselves :)

While they were away, Julie and the twins came over to our place for a sleepover.  We all had a great time and the kids were beside themselves with excitement!  Julie took care of the kids dinners and I decided to actually pull out one of my old favourites to make something special for dinner (no Hungry Jack's for us!  Lol). 

Back in 2007 when I was pregnant, I was watching '9am with David & Kim' (remember that show?) when a guy called Anthony Telford came on and cooked a Thai soup called Tom Ka Gai.  I liked the look of it so I gave it a go... and it was delicious!  My version of it has evolved over the years, so not exactly the same as the original, but I like it :)  It does take a long time to chop everything, even with our super slick Global knives (and particularly because I am fond of making double or triple batches), but I promise it's worth it!

So here is the recipe....

Ingredients
700ml water
800ml coconut cream
10g sugar
2 lemon grass stalks, cut into 3 lengths
6 shallots (or spring onions - chopped finely, keep chopped white parts and green parts separate)
6 coriander roots (wash well and chop)
Sprinkle of chilli flakes (to your taste)
120g chopped ginger
5 kaffir lime leaf (this is 5 'double' leaves, don't separate them)

60ml fish sauce
30ml lime juice
30ml soy sauce
300g chicken breast, sliced thinly
1 punnet fresh baby corn
1 bunch coriander
150g snow peas, sliced
1 packet bean shoots
Steamed rice to serve

Method
In a large pot, heat the water, coconut cream and all ingredients down to the kaffir lime leaf.  Simmer for around half an hour.

While the soup is simmering, fry chicken in a fry pan until just cooked.  Add to soup.  (You can let it cook in the soup if you like instead, but I am fussy about meat, so prefer to make sure its totally cooked!)

Add fish sauce, lime juice, soy sauce, baby corn and half the coriander to soup and simmer for another half an hour or so.

Just before serving, throw in the snow peas, bean shoots and half the remaining coriander, give it a good stir.  I also remove the lemon grass and kaffir lime leaves, but up to you.

Dish up rice, then soup - sprinkle coriander over the top to serve (and also chilli flakes if desired).

It is lovely to get a small spoonful of rice and sort of sink it into the soup so it surrounds the rice on your spoon... very yummy!

Here is how mine looks:

You can find the original recipe here if you're interested.  It is quite different in method (he only cooks his for about 20 minutes total) and some ingredients, but I stick pretty closely to the ingredients of the base soup, it's so yummy...  the other stuff is just a matter of personal preference :)  (Although I probably would use galangal in place of ginger if it was more readily available).

Hope you give it a go and enjoy it!

Bye for now :)