Tom Ka Soup

If you'd like a vegan version of this soup, go to this post.

I was supposed to go out with friends for dinner the other night but I called them and told them I was sick and shouldn't go out.  About an hour later, they showed up at the door with some Tom Ka soup from the Thai place in Harvard Square.  Isn't that sweet?

It helped my sore throat and I really felt like it was really restorative so I thought I would make a batch of my own so I could have it again.  This isn't vegetarian but I did find recipes online for it.  I think you could just use vegetable stock and leave out the fish sauce.

You could also add chicken which is called Tom Ka Gai.

There are a lot of different recipes on line.  This is how I made mine:

To make the broth I used:

1 quart chicken stock

1 thumb-sized piece of ginger, diced

2 tablespoons lemongrass, chopped

I added the ginger and lemongrass to the stock and heated just to boiling.  I let the ginger and lemongrass steep in the hot stock for about 1/2 hour and then added:

1 14 oz. can coconut milk

Juice of two limes

4 tablespoons of fish sauce

2 tablespoons Sriracha (to taste or optional)

(If you think the soup is too sour, you can add a little (1 Tbl.) brown sugar to balance it.)

These are the vegetables I used for my bowl of soup.

I was feeling like (lucky) sevens would be good for me so I used 7 pea pods, 7 green beans, 7 pieces of raw zucchini, 7 slices of onion, 7 pieces of baby corn, 4 cremini mushrooms (cut into 7 slices), a few broccoli florets, 7 slivers of ginger root, 7 carrot flowers, and some cilantro leaves.

To make carrot flowers, just cut several V grooves down the length of a carrot and then cut slices.  How could carrot flowers NOT instantly make you feel better?

This stuff all stays raw...

...but I blanched the brocolli, green beans and carrots for two minutes to soften them.

Assemble all of the veggies in a bowl, ladle on the broth and top with a few extra cilantro leaves.

(Damn, it's hard to take pictures with my left hand while pouring broth!)

Piping hot Tom Ka Vegetable Soup.  It's good for what ails you.