LOVEANDSPICEINTHEVALLEYOFDEATH#2

Tom Yum Quickee AKA Spicy Assed Soup

This is an absolute weekly staple for me. Loads of chilli, fresh veg and no carb (unless you want). Keeps my fire up and my fat belly down. Happy to own the shame that this is straight out of a jar. I add a ton of pimp over the top but the base of the dish is a Tom Yum paste. For the uninitiated, Tom Yum is a Thai 'hot and sour soup'. Quick travel porn detour, I've had the real deal over there and of course is waaaay different (photo below). Loads more 'fish bits' to add a deeper flavour and just generally rich as fuck. I'm not trying to recreate that but this is true enough to the name if you're fussed about that kind of shit. My big surprise from the little Thai caff where I ate this was... tomato. They put tomatoes in their real-deal Tom Yum soup (don't be a racist, of course have tomatoes in Thailand, duh). That's now added to my recipe and really rounds out the flavour, the combo of coconut milk and fresh tomatoes gives you the same kinda comfort factor as western tinned tomato soup, but with added chilli oomph.

What I Did

1. Uh, vegetables. This is a super flexible dish and you can sub in here whatever you want, noodles being the obvious addition. I always go with carrot and broccoli and build it up from there. Carrots I cut in big strips and the broccoli into medium florets and then steam. I've got a bamboo steam basket thing for that which sits conveniently over the big brown pot I seem to cook everything in. Takes about 5 mins, when the carrots start to soften and sweeten up. Damn, that makes me think of Marrakesh. They sure as hell know how to steam their carrots...
2. Other stuff: in this one it looks like I added refried bean curd. I also use peppers from time to time and omelette (friend, sliced, thrown over the top). Pushing the boat out, a few frozen prawns. I guess anything goes really. So next step is to prep that shit however it needs prepping.
3. Starting on the soup: this is half a tin of coconut milk (serving two) and same-ish quantity of water. I cook this in the same pot I've steamed the vegetables over and use that water cos I'm flash.
4. In goes the paste. At a guess I'd say two heaped spoons per person. What if I'm wrong??? You taste the fucking soup and add more if you want more. For extra pimpage I tend to put in a tiny bit of miso paste to (say in a posh voice) broaden the flavour profile. I've even got a random jar of Nigerian fish bits that approximates the depth of flavour you get in Thailand. But this is showing off - you don't need these add ons.
5. Next, my new secret weapon, a fresh tomato or two, roughy chopped, not fine, and thrown in. You can even get away with a squirt of tomato paste. Leave this to cook on a medium heat for about 5 minutes. All that's happening here really is you're warming the soup paste mixture up and breaking the tomato down.
6. Well what do you know, that's pretty much it. To finish I dump the steamed veg and anything else into the soup to warm them back up and to mix the flavours a bit.
7. Last thing... I can't quite decide whether it's essential or not... I add a slug of lime juice (bottle, not fresh). One big drawback of using ready mix paste is that it's a bit on the salty side. The lime juice, added at the end when the heat is off, helps to balance the salt and generally fresh the dish up.
8. So what else do you get from authentic Tom Yum that's missing from my version? Loads probably but they're different dishes. This is my midweek dish so I'm not competing. Add fresh coriander and mint if you've got someone to impress. Ah but that reminds me of another revelation from Thailand, THEY PUT PORK SCRATCHINGS IN THEIR TOM YUM. No shit, pork fucking scratchings. A little drier than the fat British pub versions but without a doubt pork scratchings. Works like a dream, soaking up the spicy liquid and adding a meat dimension to the soup flavour. Of course I brought some home with me but got scoffed with a beer or cider, sans any Tom Yum. What a barbarian I am.

What I Used

Basic Bits

• Tom Yum soup paste: bit of a must. I get mine from my favourite Vietnamese on Hackney Mare Street (around about where Well Street is). There's loads of different varieties. As mentioned, they can get a bit SALTY so I check the ingredients and go with the lower salt content ones (eg. salt being 4th or 5th in the list of ingredients, not like 2nd - cos they're listed in quantity order don't you know?).
• Coconut milk: half a tin
• Veg or whatever else you want actually in the soup
• Is the tomato an essential? Let's say yes, or a little tomato paste can work
• Let's also say then that the lime juice is essential. Like I said, buy bottled from a supermarket, don't bother with fresh.

To Pimp

• Whatever other fancy bits you want in the soup: sliced omlette, tofu, grilled peppers, other veg, few prawns etc
• Maybe a touch of miso paste and/or fish bits to round out the flavour of the soup
• Garnish? Not for me, not in the middle of the week mate but you go for it. Fresh chillies, fresh herbs, a drizzle of this, a dash of that... It's the end of the world! Get over yourself and eat!