Tom Kha Gai- Coconut soup with chicken- Chefling TalesChefling Tales

Tom Kha Gai – Coconut soup with chicken

January 3, 2013

Tom Kha Gai (Coconut Soup with Chicken) – a creamy Thai soup with aromatic ingredients like galangal, kaffir lime leaves, lemon grass and coriander. You can make it Thai spicy by adding red chillies. I love it that way. Its a complete meal when eaten with boiled rice. If you love coconut milk , this is a perfect dish for you! Gai means chicken in Thai and Kha means Galangal. If you order Thai food at a restaurant make sure you try this dish!

The best Tom Kha Gai I have ever had was at Ban Thai- a restaurant in a traditional Thai house run by a beautiful Thai lady in Soi 16 Sukhumvit. She worked in morning with an oil firm and ran this restaurant with her husband in the evening. This was the first ever meal I had all by myself in a city full of ‘friendly’ strangers. I sat in her restaurant for 2 hours discussing Thai culture, economics and politics. We visited this restaurants with our friends again.

Tom Kha Gai at Ban Thai

Note: Ginger is not a substitute for galangal- Galangal is a milder form of ginger but it is more aromatic and slightly zesty in flavour. Do not substitute it. I don’t make Tom Yum or Tom Kha Gai in Pakistan for same reason.

However, don’t lose hope. You can still make it using Chilli Paste in Oil. (Nam Prik Pao) i.e. if fresh galangal, fresh lemon grass or fresh kaffir leaves are not available. In that case, you would need to add the paste one teaspoon at a time and check the intensity of the flavour.

Preparation time: 20 minute(s)

Cooking time: 15 minute(s)

Number of servings (yield): 2

Recipe: Tom Kha Gai

Ingredients

2 cups of cocunut milk- the creamiest coconut milk you can get. The best is to make it at home!
6 tbsp fish sauce or chicken stock
6 Kaffir lime leaves (torn in two-three pieces)
1 cup of Straw Mushrooms diced
2 stalks lemon grass (sliced 1inch)
5 slices of galangal
500g boneless chicken (horizontally sliced in 2 inch long pieces)
2 tbsp corriander (chopped an stems included)
3 tbsp Lemon
3-4 Fresh red chillies (diced)- the smaller you dice the spicier the flavour will be
1 cup water

Instructions

Heat water, coconut milk, fish sauce, kaffir lime leaves, mushrooms, lemongrass, galangall and bring to boil on slow heat
Note: If you want to make the soup more creamy and you are using the regular canned coconut milk – you can use 3 cups of coconut milk with water and reduce it to two cups on slow heat.
Add chicken and heat it until cooked.It will take about 5-10 minutes. Don’t over cook meat. It will become rubbery!
Turn off heat.
Add coriander, fresh lemon juice and fresh chillies.
Your dish is ready
Serve it immediately with boiled rice.