A Dish a Day: Tom Yum Soup - a Monday night supper

Ramblings from a voracious eater 

on the dish that made her day

A quick bowl of steaming Tom Yum soup

Today, supper is a Thai Tom Yum soup - a warming furnace that sets innards alight; igniting the body with its head-clearing properties. The broth itself is clean and wholesome, but when you add those classic four flavours - sweet, salty, hot and sour - right at the end, the soup is transformed into something spectacular. Most enjoyable is the rasp of chilli that hits the back of your throat just when you least expect it. 

I had some chicken bones in the freezer that I used to make a quick stock, but if you have ready made stock, this soup for two can be cooked in ten minutes. 

Tom Yum ingredients:
coriander, lemongrass, chilli, ginger, kaffir lime leaves

Simply heat up a litre of light chicken stock until boiling. Turn the the stock down to a simmer and add all the fragrants: a stick of lemongrass, a few slices of ginger, a few slices of galangal (or a teaspoon of paste), a handful of coriander stems and 2 or 3 kaffir lime leaves - all bruised slightly with a pestle. The flavours will infuse perfectly after a 5 minute simmer. 

Fish out the spices, add a big handful of king prawns and cook until pink. Turn off the heat add some splashes of fish sauce, a teaspoon of palm sugar, a generous squeeze of lime and plenty of sliced chilli (birdseye is the best - and as much as you can manage) - enough to blast through the February chill. Garnish with coriander leaves and a slices of spring onion. 

Serve with rice and feel restored. 

Other Tom Yum recipes

I'm a big fan of Felicity Cloake's 'Perfect' series. Read about her perfect Tom Yum soup here.

Andrew Kojima's version for the Telegraph is quick and easy. 

Kaosarn, St John's Hill: Guaranteed Good Times

‘Why don’t we go to Kaosarn instead?’ The text from wine-botherer Ruth Ford read a year or so ago when I suggested we visit some upstart of a restaurant in Brixton village. ‘I’ve heard not-great things about ___, but Kaosarn will be guaranteed good times.’

We didn’t end up going for some reason or another, but that epithet stuck with me. In my head, Kaosarn became the unfaddy, honest restaurant we all needed round the corner. 

Oh the excitement, the unfettered joy we felt when we heard that Kaosarn was opening on St John’s Hill in Wandsworth. The lead came from a tweet from Luke Mackay that the much-loved Thai canteen was making its way westward, expanding from its Brixton home closer to my home. 

St John’s Hill has had a strange relationship with restaurants - so often has some unsuspecting and naive budding-restaurateur arrived and fled within the year. St John’s hill is no Northcote Road - sans gloss and prams, but it’s lately had an influx of good things happen to it. Joining the rather brilliant Fish Club, French deli and Chinese Good Earth Express were Ben’s Canteen, which recently hosted a dinner from Roganic’s ex head-chef Ben Spalding, and two new popular drinking establishments - the Plough and Powder Keg Diplomacy. 

Thrown into the mix is Kaosarn, the Thai canteen with the cult following. And the ‘Hill’ has been screaming - aching, in fact - for a place like this. 

Opening today, it was manned by a full staff of efficient ladies and led by the industrious Gisele. Much more of a restaurant than the cafe in Brixton, the space is roomy and light (there’s a back room that can be hired for private functions as well), with tables lit intimately with candles. The menu is so extensive (the first page already divided into starters, salads, noodles and soups) we had to reign ourselves in. Armed with four bottles of Chang beer from the offie across the road, we were ready. 

On Gisele’s recommendation we started with moo ping - skewers of tender pork, sticky with sauce and dark and shiny with the caramelisation of palm sugar. It was a confident and competent start to the meal. 

The tom kha gai - chicken pieces in a hot coconut soup - was a compact explosion of flavours - laced with chilli and lemongrass and flavoured with slices of galangal and plump mushrooms. 

Hot tiger prawns and bamboo with red curry paste had the lick of Thai basil and was sprinkled with Thai aubergines and green peppercorns. The menace of red chilli slices thrilled through this stunning dish - our favourite and the one that will draw us back. (Pad prig gang on the menu)

Yum woonsen - warm glass noodle salad with prawns, minced pork, peanuts, chilli, coriander, red onion and spring onion was light yet satisfying. The balance of sweet sugar with the tang of fish sauce was right on. I could eat bowls and bowls of this. 

Though it was the first night, there were no nerves, no cock-ups and by seven o’clock was almost full. Kaosarn will live up to its Brixton reputation and draw the food-loving crowd to St John’s Hill, light up nights out and provide what they’re known for: guaranteed good times. 

Kaosarn

110 St John’s Hill

SW11 1ST

020 7223 7888

BYO, cash only (cash machine across the road), takeaway

Green Mango Salad

I love the youth of a green mango salad. It’s a salad fresh and shouty, foolish and sweet as a wet-eared adolescent who’s just emerged from the flush of spotty teenagehood. It’s the taste of freedom the first time you’re away from home, unbridled, yet still innocent in its unripe firmness.

Am I getting carried away here? Perhaps it’s because I’m faced with the twinge of a dicky hip, yearning for my salad days.

But this is a seriously good salad. That taste of crunchy mango evokes joy. Laced with the sour of limes, salt of fish sauce and sweetened with palm sugar, the flavours meld in delicious concord. Throw in the spike of a birds-eye chilli, and you’re asking for an exquisite kind of trouble as Leo diCaprio did in search of The Beach.

Strictly speaking, this is a Thai side salad. But this is my version (that is - not the beacon of authenticity). I know I should julienne rather than grate the mango, introduce the salt tang of shrimp paste/dried shrimp etc. etc. But this is a fifteen minute throw-together that is so moreish, ladlefuls will be eaten before you’ve even left the kitchen.

Top tip? Make more so that you can eat more.


Green Mango Salad Recipe

(serves 4 a a side salad, 2 as a main meal if you’re adding prawns/chicken)

2 x unripe mangoes (with yellow hard-ish flesh rather than orange) - peeled then grated
2 large handfuls of coriander - finely chopped
3 or 4 spring onions - finely chopped
1/2 - 1 red birds-eye chilli - seeds and all (to taste)

Dressing - mix together first
3 tablespoons fish sauce
Juice of 1-1.5 limes
1 tablespoon palm sugar (use brown sugar if you don’t have palm sugar)

Very simply - mix everything except the dressing ingredients together and watch the vibrant colours clash.

Add the dressing and mix well.

Add grilled prawns or chicken if you fancy - it really is the best garnish.