Tom Yum Goong (Hot and Sour Shrimp Soup Thai Style)

I have a love and hate relationship or more like tolerate and hate relationship with this particular food item. For the life of me I could not understand how this slimy, ungainly looking thing makes so many people wax eloquent. But guilt is what pushes me towards buying this now and then. I felt guilty for depriving my family of all the goodness by keeping away from it. So I brace myself and bring some home. I even had a few successful recipes though the one I seem to prefer most is the deep fried version invariably found in most take out fried rice.

I have watched in amazement at recipes where this was used as a substitute for traditional ingredients. I watched paneer being tossed in favor of this in mattar paneer. It even became raita. It replaced eggs in a scramble, which is the form I happen to cook up most often. Moreover I watched friends add a handful of this beans to make idli batter or a handful of powder into paratha dough with great trepidation.

I bet by now you know that I am talking about Tofu and Soy. I started to read up more about soy and soy products to assuage my guilt, learning more than I wanted to in the process. Soy is the second most subsidized crop in the United States next only to corn. It has taken over land from other crops simply because it is more profitable. Once it got its reputation as a super food and endorsement from health food experts its utilization and popularity steadily grew. Most processed foods seem to have some form of soy based ingredient in them. I am sure even with a stellar reputation it cannot be consumed for breakfast, lunch and dinner without fear of side effects. Like the CDS (Credit Default Swaps) that we cannot escape from the benefits of soy seem to be overrated whose fall I expect will come sooner than later. I also understand that it does not hurt to have the most powerful lobby promoting its benefits. The soybeans have to be fermented to produce soy curd which is called Tofu. In its raw form soy bean inhibits absorption of nutrients making it unsuitable for consumption. To make roasted soy beans, they are first cooked completely to deactivate the enzyme that inhibits the absorption of nutrients and protein.

I am glad I did the research, I realize now soy is not a replacement for any food group and come to the conclusion that there is no need for it in Indian cooking. Using paneer in mattar paneer once in a while is not going to cause any great harm. I would rather use potatoes if I had to toss out the paneer. As for the raita I won’t even go there. Needless to say I rest easy without being forced into guilt by the unseen Tofu gods. I still may occasionally cook up that tofu scramble not because of its health benefits but simply because I feel like eating it and maybe even this stir fried tofu. There are a lot of negative effects of eating soy products which I won't go into at length here but there is a lot of information available so please do your research.

If Tofu kept me awake for a night or two, it is nothing compared to what I had to go through before I was able to cook up some Tom Yum Goong in my kitchen. I had gone out with some friends to a Thai restaurant. Yes, most Thai soups are light and flavorful always leaving you wanting more. This one was no exception. When I started to look up the recipe I was glad to find that it was really very simple. As luck would have it an international market opened a mile from our house. I picked up lemon grass, galangal and chili sa-te. It could easily replace the nam prik pao. The ingredients in this were chilies, shallots, sugar and citric salt preserved in soy bean oil (!) similar to nam prik pao. I used vegetable broth which gave this soup a bright color. Any broth can be used or even just water would do. Adding or leaving out the shrimp is completely up to you. We added some noodles to our soup to make it a complete meal. As for the kafir lime leaves did not have any but I had a lime tree in a pot.

I based the soup on the following recipes.
Rasa Malaysia
Chez Pim

Serves: 5

Tom Yum Goong

1. 1 Quart Vegetable broth
2. 15 Shrimp
3. a handful of coriander leaves
4. 3 red thai chilies
5. about 2 inch piece of galangal peeled and sliced
6. 2-3 lemon grass outer leaves removed and sliced
7. 4-5 lime leaves
8. 2-3 tbsp fish sauce
9. 2 tbsp chili paste (nam prik pao)
10. 1/2 tbsp lite soy sauce
11. 4 Cups of water
12. juice from 1 lemon (lime preferable)
13. 1 pack crimini mushrooms cleaned and sliced
14. 2 cups cooked noodles ( I used soba noodles and chow mein stir fried noodles)
15. 1 tomato cut into chunks (optional)

Method
1. In a sauce pan throw in the sliced galangal, sliced lemon grass, torn lime leaves and slit thai chilies and a bit of the chili paste and let it reduce to about 2 cups.
filter out the liquid.
2. Now heat the stock with the aromatics filtered out from step 1 till it comes to a boil and 5 minutes more, filter out the aromatics.
3. Now add the broth from step 1 into the stock.
4. Add the fish sauce, chili paste and soy and let the mixture come to a boil
5. Cook the noodles per direction if using and add it to the soup
6. Add the sliced mushrooms and towards the end the cleaned shrimp. Cook for a minute or two.
7. Sprinkle the coriander leaves and server immediately.
8. Squeeze lemon juice onto the cups.