Tom Yam (or Yum) Gai - Thai spicy (very) chicken and prawn soup

I have made lots of this type of soup from various recipes over the years (I think the best one was from a fellow foodie on the BBC food board called Josh, he traveled a lot in SE Asia and collected a lot of Asian Recipes, his was really authentic.

I have adapted parts from various recipes so I don't know how near a real one it is?

So I started by making a hearty chicken broth, first the base stock was made from:

Stock ingredients

1000g of chicken remains, these are called Hühnerklein in Germany; these are the parts that are left after the chicken farmer has removed the breasts, thighs and wings. I would have got fresh from the market, but it was Tuesday and no market on, this meant frozen !!

1 handful of freeze dried vegetables (Suppengemuse)
1dessert spoon of pepper corns (mixed)
1 piece of mace
1 star aniseed
6 cloves
3 dried bay leaves
a piece of Cinnamon bark

1 piece of ginger (about 1 inch sliced but not peeled)
2 garlic cloves crushed
2 teaspoons of Marigold vegetable stock (or a jar or 2 of pre-cooked hühnerbrühe)
The dark green from a bunch of spring onions (the light green and whites go into the finished soup)

Put the lot into a pressure cooker and pour on enough boiling water to cover, lid on, put on high until it comes up to pressure and then reduce for 1 hour.

Strain through a sieve. This is one very nice Chicken stock and with very little adjustment can be used as the base for many soups, stews, curries and fricassee (it also freezes very well and lends itself to be concentrated) or even freeze into portions (cup size for drinking in winter or ice cube size in freezer bags).

To make the chicken soup

1.5kg boiling fowl (or old cockerel if you can get a one)

Boil the  fowl in the stock, this can be done at a rolling boil skimming the scum from the top, or as I did in the pressure cooker.

When done remove the hen from the liquid, this is one of the best chicken stocks that you will have ever tasted. When cool strip the meat from the hen, discarding all of the skin (we are being healthy), the bones and nasty bits of gristle and feathers.

Strain once again through a fine seive. I got about 3 ltrs of fantastic Chicken soup


Making the Tom Yam paste

This makes a 250ml glass jar
2 stalks of lemon grass, outer hard skin removed, bashed and chopped
2 red chillies deseeded & sliced, (take your pick hot, very hot or seriously mind blowing)
2 Tspns of galangal paste (I couldn't get any fresh)
2 Tspns of coriander paste
3 cloves of garlic
1 shallot, diced
3 kafir lime leaves
Zest of 1 lime
1 piece of palm sugar or a few cubes of raw cane sugar
1 desert spoon of dried shrimps
1 desert spoon heavy soy  sauce
1 Tspn of oyster sauce
1 Tspn of light fish sauce
1 Tspn of Tamarind  paste
1/2 to 1 Tspn of shrimp flavoured chilli powder

Put all into a blender and blitz until it is all a nice fine paste, transfer into a clean sterilised jar, this will keep in the refridgerator for a couple of weeks, when it gets a fur coat on the top sling it!

For the Tom Yam soup

For 2 people as a main course or 4 as a starter:

1 litre of your home made super-dooper chicken stock

2 Tspns of your home made Tam Yam paste ( try it at 2 to start with, you can always add a bit more to suit your taste)

10  shelled large prawns (better if you can get fresh, but frozen will do at a push)

1 cup full of diced meat from the chicken oops hen (the rest can be put into the remaining stock and frozen for a rainy day)

2 stalk of lemon grass white only, husked, crushed and very finely sliced

1 clove of garlic sliced
1 piece of galangal (about 2,5 cm) sliced ever so fine (mandolin is good, but watch those fingers)

The remainder from the bunch of spring onions (keep some as a garnish for later)

2 smallish chillis de-seeded and finely sliced

1 bunch of coriander leaves chopped (you can use the stalks and roots in the stock)

140g shiitake mushrooms (if fresh are unavailable try preserved, I did, or use brown cap)

50g of rice noodles,the flat ones (soaked)

6 small red tomatoes, cut into quarters and de-seeded

A small knob of shrimp paste (size of a finger nail) don't worry if you don't have any

Juice of 1 lime (if needed, only add if you think it is not sour enough)

The making of: (I have heard about this malarky in films)


In a clean pan (or better still a large wok with a burnt bottom) heat a little corn oil,  add the garlic along with two tea spoons of the Tom Yam paste (or more you hero) heat through to release the natural oils (don't burn),

add the whites of the spring onions, the lemon grass and the sliced galangal, soften and add 1 litre of the chicken stock, heat through to just below boiling.

Add the shiitake’s, some of the chilli's and tomato's. Add the noodles, the cooked chicken pieces and the shrimp paste. Now the prawns, when heated through (just a couple of minutes, don’t cook for too long they go tough and aren’t all that nice) taste and adjust seasoning with more soy, fish sauce, chilli flakes or lime juice if needed. Garnish with chopped coriander leaves, spring onions, sliced chillies.

Serve either in individual soup bowls with spoons or in a terrine for everyone to help themselves ( I often serve side dishes of more chilli flakes, coriander and diced spring onions. As some people (not I) have an aversion to coriander (don't tell them it is in the paste) you can serve the chopped coriander totally as a side dish :-(

I personally think that chopsticks are a must and ideally one slurps from the bowl (bib required). But Chinese porcelain spoons can be used for those not proficient in the use of chopsticks and slurping.

I had my first real taste of Tom Yam in a Hawkers Market below one of Singapore’s department stores! I got my bowl of Tam Yum complete with piles whole prawns, I being young innocent and completely naive (some would say daft), I sprinkled a large amount of crushed dried chillies over the top of what I later discovered was an already well spiced soup, aagghhh *%%!!@@ it almost blew my head off, the Asian Gentleman sitting opposite, look at me in amazement, as the sweat streamed out of my head (and the rest of my body), he kept shaking his head and continued eating his soup, which I must add had far more added chillies than mine. BUT I did finish it, it was another few months before I tried it once again, this time I did not add any extra chillies and found it rather nice, I have now increased my pain level to a point of now being able to eat my Tom Yam soup with a decent amount of fire without causing embarrassment to myself and others:-D