Sawaddee ka welcome to hot Thai kitchen today is another opportune moment to do a
remake of one of my all-time favorite soups we are remaking tom ka gai or this chicken
coconut galangal soup it's super world famous you know it and if you've tried my old recipe
and you think it's good just wait this one is even better so first of all it's do a
review tom means to boil and it's a prefix for soups ka is galangal which is our main
herb for today and gai is chicken so let's take a look at our ingredients
you
so let's first deal with our herbs our main character our galangal galangal is a rhizome
very much like ginger looks like a ginger does not taste the same you can you cannot substitute
and expect the same result but if you want a substitute ginger just bear in mind that it's
going to taste a little different so you want to cut rounds about thin rounds we're going to
do ten okay so I've got ten rounds now galangal has a flavor that I like to say it's very much
like a mmm a pine forest after the rain is what I like to say it so we've got that got ten you
know this is small this is a pretty small going gal I'm going to do a little extra okay so the
next one is our lemongrass so lemongrass pretty straightforward we'll do 1 stalk and I'm just
going to review how to prep this the store cut it for me like this but you might get a whole
one which is about twice as long we don't want to use the top half because that's very weak you can
keep it for stock we're just going to use the bottom half just smash it oops cut off the end
take off the outside bit which is usually dirty or dry cut this into chunks so we smash it just to
help the aroma release itself into the soup okay because all the flavor molecules are locked inside
those cells you want to break them free okay and finally if your lime leaves so the three important
herbs lemongrass galangal and kaffir lime leaves they also come dry so those work quite well just
add a little bit more I'm just going to leave them until when we're ready to throw them in and
I'll just tear them directly into the pot okay so there's that and next the chilies now this is not
supposed to be a very spicy soup normally it's mildly spiced so the chilies you don't want to
chop it to fine you just want to either bruise them or cut them into big pieces and let the
spice gently infuse into the soup you can leave it out in tirely if you want this is not like
thumb yum soup it does not need to like kick you in the butt when you eat it okay so I've just got
those and then finally our vegetable mushrooms traditionally we use straw mushrooms for this I
don't have straw mushrooms not fresh ones anyway there's canned ones but oyster mushroom is another
really common choice I love oyster mushrooms in this just tear them into bite-sized pieces or
you can also do these mushrooms which are becoming quite popular these days they're beach or shimeji
mushrooms they come in brown and white you can use either ones got a similar flavor and texture
to oyster mushrooms and that is pretty much all as far as ingredients go we're just ready to go
and cook our soup so the major difference between this recipe and last one major improvement is I'm
going to use chicken stock instead of water as a base now water is something you know if it's
if you want to pull the soup together quickly it's fine but if you use chicken stock the soup
will be that much better if you don't know how to make chicken stock I have a video for how to make
pork stock chicken stock exactly the same just use chicken bones instead of pork bones try to
not use store-bought stock because one they'll be quite salty and then you also get all sorts
of other flavorings and things like that they like to add so a homemade stock is the way to
go so I've got that boiling and then we're going to add salt just a teaspoon of salt to season the
soup ooh and then when this comes to a boil I'm going to add the chicken now I'm using chicken
thighs you can dark meat because what I'm going to do is I'm going to let it braise for
20 minutes until the chicken whoa becomes fork tender and it has time to absorb all that salt
that we just add so the chicken itself becomes seasoned all the way throughout rather than you
know being a piece of bland chicken amongst this delicious soup outside we're going to let that go
for because they're small pieces they'll only take 20 minutes and what you're going for is
for tenderness I don't recommend using breasts for this method if you insist on using chicken
breast I wouldn't brace it just marinated and to the n cos braised chicken breasts they don't
have the texture is a bit it's not as nice as this because it's very lean so we're going to
let that go at a simmer don't boil it the reveal boil everything away so just at a low simmer and
then we'll be right back so our chicken is now nice and fork tender and even just the broth I
tasted it just now that's a good chicken soup right there because we could use good chicken
stock I'm gonna transfer it into a bigger pot because I don't think this will fit everything
yeah okay now we're minutes away from being done I'm going to turn the heat up a little bit we're
going to add our coconut milk yeah herbs and spices we're going to bring that back to a
boil oh and our fish sauce which I'm going to add most of it so I've got two tablespoons here
I'm going to add to about one first and then sort of adjust from there the thing about soup is oh
no I forgot to tear my let my kaffir lime leaves tear your lime leaves before you chop them in what
was I saying the thing about soup is when you let something simmer for that long you don't actually
know how much liquid actually evaporated and that will affect how much salt you need to add so save
some for final adjustment and also a teaspoon of sugar just a little bit you don't want this palm
sugar you don't want this soup to be super sweet you just want to round off the salt and the acid
as per usual I'm going to bring that back to a boil and let it simmer for just a few minutes it
doesn't take that long to infuse these herbs what I'm gonna do to rescue my lime leaf is I'm gonna
cut them with scissors so at least it'll you know help them infuse a little bit that should do it
so the soups been infusing now that you can really smell it go in with the mushrooms and
the mushrooms really don't take very long to cook it's like a minute or so yeah this is like the
Thai equivalent of chicken noodle soup it's great when you're sick and it's even better when you're
not sick and now it's the time you taste it you want to do your final adjustment when everything's
been added because the mushrooms will give off some liquid and all that stuff so now everything's
in we're going to taste for salt I'm going to go in with just some of my remaining fish sauce
maybe not all do one final taste perfect so that was about a tablespoon and a half so my mushrooms
cooked everything's cooked one last ingredient is lime juice so I'm going to turn it off because
I don't want to cook my lime juice not all of it either give that a taste now unlike them yum soup
you this soup does not need to be super sour the sour sort of secondary yeah that's good perfect
mmm yep and the spicy is just they're tingling the back of your throat let's go plate it up mmm ten
wait so all these herbs all the galangal lemongrass kaffir lime leaves they are
traditionally left in the soup but they are not meant to be eaten because it's very chewy you'll
have a hard time trying to eat it so you can if you're serving this - guess we're not familiar
with these herbs you want to at least tell them or remove it altogether after it's done infusing so
what I would do you want to remove it is I would put him in cheesecloth and when it's done pull out
the whole cheesecloth or just let it sit in the little strainer and just lift off the strainer but
it's prettier if you leave them in there because you know you can visually see what's in the soup
it's pretty but it's not worth you know having your guests choke on these things we're gonna
garnish it a little bit with some green onions you can also do a cilantro but I think green onions is
nice mmm the chicken is super tender don't even have to exert any effort and it's so comforting
the flavor for this one you really want it to be a nice comforting balance not too strong in any
of the sweet salty sour and just a little bit of spiciness in the back of your throat mmm I
almost want to have a cold right now so I can heal myself with this stuff so if you want to try this
let me know how it goes you can contact me through Facebook Twitter Instagram the recipe is where it
always is on have a kitchen calm and I will see you next time for your next delicious Thai meal