Tom Kha Gai Soup

Ingredients (serves 2)

• 1 Tin Coconut Milk
• 2 Salmon Fillets or Chicken Breasts – both diced
• 1 Tbsp Fish Sauce
• 6 Lime Leaves
• Juice of 1 Lime
• 2 Sticks Lemongrass, (peel outer sheath and chop them into 3)
• 6 Slices Galangal Root
• 6 regular sized button/white mushrooms, halved (or 12 mini button mushrooms)
• A dozen or so cherry tomatoes (kept whole)
• 1 red chilli, sliced.
• Fresh Coriander (cilantro) chopped 2/3 tablespoons

Please note* If you are reading this from Korea, I obtained the coconut milk, lemongrass, fish sauce, coriander & galangal root  from Itaewon’s Foreign Food Market and  the lime leaves were from High Street Store. 

Method

1. Empty the tin of coconut milk into a medium sized saucepan.
2. Add 3/4 tin of water.
3. Add 1 Tbsp Fish Sauce, Lime Leaves, Lemongrass, Galangal Root and Mushrooms.
4. Bring the contents to the boil.
5. Add the Salmon/Chicken (chicken will take longer) – continue to boil until it is cooked (a couple of minutes).
6. Reduce the heat and add the chilli, tomatoes.
7. Simmer for 5/10 minutes, the longer it simmers, the spicier the soup will get.
8. Finally, stir in the lime juice and sprinkle the coriander generously over the top.

*This is nice with pumpkin seed bread (freshly baked) or by itself as it is quite filling.

Homemade Barley Soup

I had a rather unhealthy weekend had been missing home cooking. South Korea is on the verge of spring (and potentially nuclear war) and before it gets much warmer, I decided to make a very easy soup which is a Jewish recipe originally from my grandmother. It’s so simple and tasty and  just has 5 inexpensive ingredients all available in Korea.

Shopping List

Bag of Pearl Barley(30g per serving)

Bag of Red Lentils (30g per serving)

Pack of beef stock cubes (1 cube per serving)

Worcester Sauce

I texted my mum to send me the recipe and she made it sound so simple that I’m just gonna post up her text right here..

The only thing I will say is that I didn’t keep an eye on it while it was simmering so the water kept evaporating, I just kept topping it up with water from the kettle and it tasted almost exactly the same as I remembered it from home.  (Mum and Grandma’s cooking will probably always taste better to me)

This post is dedicated to Sybil