Tom Kha Paste Recipes

Steps:

• Bring coconut milk and broth to a boil, add thinly sliced galangal, minced ginger, and Thai chiles to soup - simmer for 10 minutes.
• Add chicken slices and stir occasionally until chicken is tenderly cooked.
• Add straw mushrooms and thinly sliced & deveined lime leaves.
• (optional : cut a few cross-sections of the lemon grass and add to the soup)
• (optional : cut tomatoes into largish cubes about 1/2" square, and add to soup).
• (optional : if you are using fresh limes, zest the lime peel into the soup).
• (optional : Add Thai chile paste or red curry paste).
• Stir well and simmer for 5-10 more minutes.
• Just before serving, turn off the heat, then add brown sugar, lime juice, fish sauce, and stir well.
• Finisher's instructions: balance the flavors by adding more spicy (chile paste), sour (lime juice), or salty (fish sauce) until perfection is reached. Different brands may have different strength or acidity -- Be careful not to overdo any one dimension, and stir well inbetween
• Top with cilantro, and serve hot by itself or pour over rice.
• Leftovers are often even more flavorful the next day or two.

Steps:

• Blend all the ingredients in a food processor until you have a smooth paste.
• Portion out 3 Tablespoon size mounds on sheets of plastic wrap.
• Place the wrapped portions in a sealed container and freeze it for later use.
• The paste can be stored for 6 months.

Steps:

• Bring coconut milk and chicken stock to a boil in a pot over high heat. Reduce heat to medium. Add cilantro, lemongrass, galangal, Thai chile peppers, and kaffir lime leaves; simmer for 5 minutes.
• Increase heat to medium-high heat. Add chicken; simmer until no longer pink in the center, about 7 minutes. Stir in cabbage; cook until wilted, about 3 minutes. Remove soup from heat; stir in lime juice and fish sauce.

Steps:

• Cook as much Jasmine rice as needed.
• Heat oil in large saucepan over medium heat until just shimmering.
• Add lemon grass, shallots, cilantro and 1 tbsp fish sauce; cook, stirring frequently, until just softened, 2 to 5 minutes (vegetables should not be brown).
• Stir in chicken broth and 1 can of coconut milk; bring to simmer over high heat. Cover, reduce heat to low and simmer until flavors have blended, 10 minutes.
• Pour broth through fine mesh strainer and discard solids in strainer.
• Rinse saucepan and return broth mixture to pan. Return pan to medium-high heat.
• Stir remaining can coconut milk, curry paste*, and sugar into broth mixture and bring to simmer.
• Reduce heat to medium, add mushrooms, and cook until just tender, 2 to 3 minutes.
• Add shrimp.
• Serve with desired amount of Jasmine rice.
• *This works very well and can be kept in the pantry until opened (http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51CJCBJES1L._SS500_.jpg).

Steps:

• Tips: the lemon grass, lime leaves and kha are best left in large pieces to make them easier to pick out later, as they are tough and inedible. I leave them in all the way till serving and tell my guests to look for them and set them aside as they eat. The RecipeZaar ingredient format makes it hard to enter how much galangal (kha) to use: I use a root-knob about twice the size of the ball of my thumb. I use half of a 4-ounce tin of red curry paste (4 tablespoons) for a pretty spicy-hot soup; you can use 1/4 can for milder heat, but the recipe for Tom Kha Gai on the Maesri tin calls for the whole thing- WOW that must be hot!
• In a large stock pot, saute the curry paste, garlic, lemon grass, lime leaves and kha in the vegetable oil for two minutes.
• Stir in chicken broth and bring to a boil.
• While broth is heating, slice the chicken breast and toss it in cornstarch. The amount of cornstarch doesn't need to be exact; just make sure the slices are evenly coated and shake off any excess.
• Add chicken to boiling broth, stir gently, and bring back up to a simmer.
• Stir in mushrooms, coconut milk, fish sauce and lime juice. Bring back up to a simmer, stirring gently a few times, then cut the heat off and you're ready to serve.
• Garnish with fresh cilantro and serve.

Steps:

• Season a medium saucepan with the olive oil. Over medium heat, brown the garlic, green onions and mushrooms.
• Stir in the fish sauce and prawns OR fish sauce and chicken and sautee until cooked through.
• Add the yellow bell pepper, tomato, chilies (for the chilies, I just take off the tops and the tails and add the remainder), brown sugar, salt, cumin, and lemongrass paste. Stir in coconut milk and basil.
• Bring the mixture to a boil, then reduce to a simmer and stir occasionally for about 10 minutes, allowing to reduce.
• Meanwhile, boil 4 cups of water, add the rice noodles and remove from heat. Let stand for 5 minutes then drain.
• Dish the noodles into large soup bowls and cover with the soup mixture. Garnish with lime leaves. Serve with sticks and non-metallic spoons.