Thai Coconut Soup/ Tom ka Ghai

Tom ka ghai is asimple thai soup made with coconut milk and authentic thai spices. It usually has chicken, pork or seafood. Here is my creation of this as a vegetarian one. The kaffir lime leaves, lemon grass and galangal gives such an amazing flavor for this wonderful soup.

 Get Ready

• 1 cup coconut milk
• 1 cup water
• 1 cup chopped carrots, mushroom, corn, beans
• 1 stalk of lemon grass, thin stem, crushed and cut into 2"
• 1 " galangal sliced
• 3-4 Kaffir lime leaves/ aka narthanaga ilai
• 1/3 cup chopped spring onions ( green part)
• 1/3 cup cubed Tofu
• 3-4 green chilli slit
• salt to taste
• 1 tsp Soy sauce
• cilantro 1 tbsp

 Go

• In a pan add the water,coconut milk, lemon grass, galangal, green chillies, kaffir leaves and let it come to a boil.
• let it cook for 2-3 mins.
• Add all the vegetables,tofu, salt to taste and cook till the vegetables are soft ,but crunchy.
• Add the spring onions, soy sauce.
• let it cook for 1 minute.
• garnish with cilantro.

Serve hot and it's one of the most addictive soups you've ever had.

Thai Green Curry

Try this vegan Thai  Green Curry with no fish sauce or shrimp paste! I've wanted to mkae this curry so badly for a while, and finally got my act together to do it.

And it was delicious bursting with flavors. The bright green color comes from all the cilantro and green chillies and is slightly mellowed by the coconut milk. The kaffir lime leaves (nothing but our good old Narthanga), lemon grass and basil give this such a great aroma, that one would enjoy! It's funny, I had to go to one particular store to get the kaffir leaves, whereas I have this tree in my backyard in chennai!

So the real Thai food pundits, please try this and let me know how it turned out! If anyone has any suggestions to improve it, I'm all ears!


Get Ready:

For the green curry paste:

• 1/2 cup chopped cilantro with stems
• 3 green chillies
• 1 inch ginger peeled  (didn't bother to buy Galangal)
• 1 garlic clove
• 2 pearl onions or shallots
• 1 stalk lemon grass, chopped (peel the outer layer if it's too thick)
• 2 kaffir lime leaves
• 1& 1/2 tsp coriander seeds
• 1/2 tsp cumin seeds
• 1/4 tsp Soy sauce
• Salt to taste and little water to grind.

For the curry:

•  1/2 can of Thai coconut milk
• 1 carrot, peeled and sliced thin diagonally
• 1/2 cup cauliflower florets
• 1 small egg plant diced ( you could use red pepper, peas  or any vegetables i guess)
• 4- 5 baby corns, slit lengthwise
• 4-6 basil leaves
• 1 tbsp oil

Get Going:

• Grind all the ingredients for the curry paste with little water to a fine paste in a blender.
• If you need more heat add more chillies and adjust salt to taste
• Boil water in a pan and just blanch the vegetables.
• In a pan, add the oil and the green curry paste.
• Saute for a few mins till the raw smell is gone, for about 4- 5 mins.
• Add the coconut milk and vegetables and let it come to boil.
• Simmer and cook till the veggies are done, but still crunchy. Don't over cook like a korma.
• Tear a couple of basil leaves and turn the heat off.

Serve hot with rice. I used Basmati and it was good!

Sending this to show-me-your-curry

Vegetable Pad Thai

This is a dsih that I've longed to eat! I used to drool when all my friends ordered thai food during residency. I never ate coz I knew there is a hidden fish or oyster sauce in that dish.
I have looked around for a pad thai recipie and found a couple pure vegeterian one. I modified it a little and came up with this one.

Of course, my thai friends may totally poo poo this version. But it's always better to start somewhere huh..?

What I used:

Thai rice noodles 1 pack
red onion 1/2 sliced
3-4 green chillies sliced
2 cloves of garlic sliced
1/4 cup shredded cabbage. ( did not have chinese cabbage)
1/4 cup snap peas
1/4 cup bean sprouts
1 egg
2-3 sprigs of green onions/ scallions
lots of cilantro
1/3 cup unsalted roasted peanuts coarsely crushed
3 tbsp oil

Pad thai sauce

4 tbsp tamarind paste
4 tbsp soy sauce
3 tbsp chilli sauce
3 tbsp jaggery ( i did not have brown sugar)
3/4 cup water.

Method:

1. Cook noodles according to packet instructions ( I used 1/2 of the noodles)

2. drain water and keep noodles aside.

3. Heat oil on high in a wok, if you have one. I did not have a wok so used a large saucepan. add the onion, garlic and green chillies and saute till theyare shinyand a anice aroma comes.

4. add the cabbage, snap peas and bean sprouts andsaute. add only a little salt as the soy sauce has some salt in it.

5. cook till the veggies are done, but crunchy too.

6. Push the vegetables to the side of the sauce pan.

7. add oil to the same pan and crack an egg. scramble it in the same sauce pan.

8. add half of the pad thai sauceand rice noodles.

9. gently toss them all around, making sure not to break up all the noodles.

10. add the remaining pad thai sauce and mix.

11. turn off the fire.

12.transfer to a platter. garnish with coarsely crushed peanuts, green onions and cilantro and serve.

My notes:

you can increase the chillies or the tanginess depending on your taste. you could also add some shredded carrots if you wanto !

Let me know if you have any other recipie for the same. Please do not forget to leave some comments!
:))