We Made Our Own Thai Tom Yum Soup For Date Night

A few weekends ago, we had a lovely time together where we spent half the long weekend just the two of us! It started off with our overnight stay at The Twelve Apostles which was just so divine!  We dropped my girls off at their granny on the Thursday afternoon and left The 12A on Friday.

 Intending to go pick our girls up afterwards, my mom (aka granny) said that she was going to take them out and so we could fetch them on Saturday if we wanted…hell yes! So we ended up spending most of our morning at The Twelve Apostles, did some food shopping and came home to an empty quiet house just the two of us.

We had a very brief moment of deciding whether we should go out but as soon as the fire was lit, we decided that staying at home, and making a delicious supper for ourselves was exactly what we felt like. While browsing the shops for what to eat, we thought a Tom Yum soup would be good as that is one of my husband’s specialties. Normally we get a Tom Yum paste but seeing as I’m now gluten, dairy and *sugar free, after reading the ingredients in all of the pastes, we decided we’d make our own! From scratch. And let me tell you, it was so easy and delicious! No need to ever buy paste again and now I know exactly what I’m eating.

If you don’t know what Tom Yum Soup is, you’re about to discover something delicious!  Tom yum or tom yam is a type of hot and sour Thai soup, usually cooked with shrimp or prawns. It is widely served in countries such as Thailand, Cambodia, Brunei, Malaysia, Singapore and Laos and has been popularised around the world. Most Thai restaurants serve it and depending on where you go, it can vary quite significantly in colour and texture. Some soups are more creamy than others while some have more of a tomato flavour. However it is served though, the flavours of lemon grass, galangal and thai lime leaves are what really give it its beautiful distinct sweet and sour taste.

We were pleasantly surprised to discover that all these oriental and ‘different’ flavours could be found in one place at our local Spar. The recipe calls for 10 chillies but it’s from a thai site so beware…that’s seriously hot! My husband used one and a half in ours and it was just the right chilli strength for me who is not very chilli tolerant. The recipe also calls for sugar but we used honey instead and it seemed to do the job. While you can buy coconut milk, we make our own coconut milk at home which makes it extra healthy. It’s really easy to do and the best way to have fresh coconut milk! To make it more of a meal, we also added rice noodles to our soup.

We based our Tom Yum on a recipe I found on eatingthaifood.com but adjusted ours slightly which is what I’ve given below. 

TOM YUM SOUP

Ingredients:

1 and a half litres of water
2 stalks of lemongrass
1 big piece of galangal
8 kaffir lime leaves
1 and a half chilies (use according to your chilli preference)
5 cloves of garlic
250g prawns (optional)
200 grams mushrooms
2 tomatoes
2 white onions (medium sized)
2 teaspoons of honey
8 tablespoons of fish sauce (depending on your taste)
5 limes (or more according to your taste)
Handful of coriander
2/3 cup of coconut milk
Rice noodles (optional)

What to do:

1. Chop the lemon grass in diagonal pieces and bash them slightly with a mortar and pessel.
2. Cut up the galangal into pieces.
3. Break up the lime leaves and then put the lemon grass, galangal, and lime leaves into a pot with 1 and a half litres of boiling water.
4. Slice up the chillies (taking out the seeds for less potency) and add to the pot of boiling water.
5. Add 5 cloves of garlic (skin off) to the pot.
6. Boil all of this together in the pot for about 10 minutes to allow the flavours to come out.
7. In the meantime, cut up the mushrooms in half (and after the 10 minutes) add to the pot.
8. Cut up the tomatoes and onions in pieces or wedges and add to the pot.
9. Add your prawns to the pot (if using).
10. Add 6 tbs of fish sauce and 1- 2 tsp of honey.
11. When the veggies are soft, add your 2/3 cup of coconut milk.
12. Juice 5 limes and add the juice to the pot.  (Taste and add more fish sauce, honey or lime juice to suit your taste.)
13. If adding rice noodles, put them in now and allow them to cook for about 5 minutes or until soft.
14. Add coriander right at the end.
15. Serve and enjoy! 🙂

* While this is gluten and dairy free, since making this I discovered that there is sugar in fish sauce 🙁 so I can’t say it’s totally sugar free. If you know an alternative or where to get sugar free fish sauce, please let me know! x