Tom khlong

A thin sour soup built on smoked dried fish and charred aromatics, with no fresh protein at all.

Fish. Not vegetarian — contains fish, fish sauce.

Ingredients

• 200 g smoked dried fish
• 1.2 litres water
• 10 dried long chillies
• 8 shallots, unpeeled
• 60 g galangal, sliced
• 3 lemongrass stalks, bruised
• 8 kaffir lime leaves
• 4 tablespoons tamarind paste
• 3 tablespoons fish sauce
• 1 tablespoon palm sugar
• 150 g mushrooms, torn

Method

1. EVERY AROMATIC IS CHARRED DRY BEFORE IT GOES IN. Shallots in their skins, galangal, lemongrass and the dried chillies all go onto a dry pan until blackened in patches. That smoke, against the smoke already in the fish, is the whole soup. Added raw it is a thin sour broth and nothing more.
2. Dry pan over a high heat: shallots 12 minutes, galangal and lemongrass 6, chillies 1 to 2 and watch them.
3. Peel the shallots once cool enough and bruise them.
4. THE FISH IS THE STOCK AND THE PROTEIN BOTH. There is no fresh fish in this and no meat; the dried smoked fish carries all of it. Tear it into pieces and check for bones before it goes in.
5. Water, charred aromatics and the fish into the pan. Simmer 15 minutes.
6. Tamarind, fish sauce and palm sugar in. Mushrooms in for 4 minutes.
7. Lime leaves torn in at the end.
8. KEEP IT THIN. This is not a curry and not a tom yam -- it should be almost clear, sharply sour and smoky, and thin enough to drink from the bowl.
9. Taste for tamarind rather than lime. The sourness here is deep and slightly sweet, not bright, and lime makes it a different soup.

Our own recipe. This one was written for this site rather than taken from anywhere, so there is no source to point you at. The quantities and the order of the steps are choices, not the only way to do it.

Filed under Thailand · All recipes