How to make Tom Yum Soup

The key to any Thai recipe is that it should satisfy the following three tastes; sweet, hot and sour. In this recipe the sweet comes from either a spoon of brown or palm sugar, the heat from the chilli and the sour from the lime. I also like to have a salty element and that comes from Thai Fish Sauce.

I find myself mostly making this recipe after a weekend of indulgence, too much booze or rich food, when I am looking to have a healthy, low calorie meal to get me back on track. I always feel like the hot. watery broth with the chilli, ginger and citrus juice is helping to cleanse and flush my systemn, whilst the veg helps to restore my body's nutritional balance. I also think it's great to make on a week night, as it only takes 20 minutes to make! Feeds 2 as a main meal or 4 as a starter.

Ingredients:

Base of the dish (the recipe always needs to contain the following ingredients)

1 stock cube (cheicken or veg)
2 Pints boling water
1/2 chilli finely sliced (whichever colour takes your fancy)
2-3 kaffir lime leaves, finely chopped
tpsn brown sugar (or palm sugar if you have it)
2cm/1in ginger finely grated
2 tbspn Tha fish sauce

Option Elements (you can pick and choose which elements you prefer, or which you have in the fridge)
Half a pepper (red or green)
Half an onion (red or white, or a handful of spring onions)
Handful of veg (whatever you have in. I find either; green beans, beansprouts, mushrooms, brocolli, celery, mangetout all work well)
1 chicken breast (sliced into strips) or a good handful of raw prawns
Rice noodles (I usually add these for a main meal or leave out for a light starter)

1. Into a large saucepan add the stock and make sure it's on a high simmer


2. Add all the bas eingrediaents (chilli, lime leaves brown sugar, ginger and fish sauce)


3. Add the hardest beg first (e.g beans, onion, celery, peppers, brocolli) simmer for 5 minutes


4. Add the chicken or prawns, noodles and the softer veg (e.g. ushrooms, beansprouts and mangetout) simmer for a further 5 minutes


5. Taste and balance, if it needs more fish sauce, sugar or lime you can add it at this point.


6. Serve in good sized bowls, can add corriander to serve.

Tip!
I always buy my kaffir lime leaves from the frozen section of my local Chinese supermarket. They freeze really well and don't need defrosting, you can put them straight from the freezer into the soup. I find the fragrance and flavour are what sets this apart as unmistakably Thai.

Variations:
If you wanted to 'jshujsh' this recipe for friends, you can add a desertspoon of Thai curry paste and a can of creamed coconut for a more luxurious and slightly more indulgent version.