Dinner Dot

Thai food is known for its very bright citrus flavors and tasty herbs like basil, cilantro, green onions, and lemon grass.  Coconut is an ingredient that is often present, but this is no dessert.  A while back I spent some time looking for a great Thai curry soup and came across this recipe.  This dish I’m doing here is an adaptation and inspired by a recipe I pulled from Epicurious which was for a curried chicken coconut soup.  (http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Curried-Chicken-Coconut-Soup-108607)  I honestly have never done the Epicurious recipe because I instantly veered off into shrimp/prawns and have been refining it since the first time I saw it.  This recipe is easy to do and brings in many of the tastes of Thai cooking.

First off I wanted a good Thai soup with some of the large prawns or shrimp that I could find at my local Costco.  I also wanted it to be a bit more hearty and have added rice as well.  Much of the rest of the recipe is similar, but I will tell you where I deviated as I go.

Here are the basic ingredients I used.

This is not a recipe that requires a great deal of precision and you can definitely bend it to your taste and what you can find at your grocery store.  Probably the hardest ingredient to find is the lemon grass.  I am able to find it packaged at my Whole Foods store and loose by the stem at Safeway.  But many other stores don’t carry it including the little local market nearby.  If you are in a place where it can’t be found then I would suggest ordering some dried lemon grass as a crushed herb from one of the online markets.  You might also check in your area for a specialty spice store.  Here in the Boulder area we’re lucky to have a spice shop called Savory.  I recently purchased some dried lemon grass from them which I plan to use if I can’t find freshly prepared lemon grass.

I usually start by getting the rice going.  I like rice to wait for me and I don’t like waiting on rice.  You can use any number of types of rice.  I’m using Basmati in this case, but a good medium grain rice will work well too.  I always toast it first by pouring a little olive oil in the bottom of the pot under medium heat and stirring the dry rice around in it.  What you’re doing is covering the rice with oil which helps to bind the starch, making the rice so it won’t stick to itself, and the heat helps to give the rice a nuttier flavor and also does speed the cooking along.  Don’t get it too brown, but if you can start to smell the nutty aromas then you’re good to go.  I add about 1 1/2 cups of water at this point.  It will steam and boil very quickly because of the hot pan and oil.  Go ahead and throw the lid on and take a peek at it in 15 minutes or so to see how it’s doing.  Personally I can never leave the lid on a pot of rice the whole time and take it off the cook top at precisely the right time and have it perfect.  Maybe that’s because I use a lot of different kinds of rice in different quantities and different pots.   So I look and sometimes stir it around to see if there is any water in the bottom and make a guess as to how much longer it needs.  Once it’s done just take it off the heat and let it be.  It doesn’t really matter how cool it gets because it will be added to the hot soup later.

Next, grate a tablespoon of fresh ginger.  You can cut pieces and run it through your garlic press, but you’ll have easier and better results if you get  yourself one of these little ginger graters.  The little nubs do a good job of separating the ginger from the stringy fibers that pervade the root.  Use your vegetable peeler to skin the ginger and then just rub it up and down on the grater tilted into a small bowl.

Next, do a very fine chop on your lemon grass.  You’ll want about 1.5 tbsp when you’re done.  And when I say finely chop I’m serious.  Lemon grass is a very stout stem.  Even with the pressure cooker it can be a little chewy and distracting in the dish.  So chop it up about as fine as you can get.  It doesn’t take long to do because it is so crisp and we don’t use too much.

If you haven’t already done it, chop up your green onions to get 3/4 of a cup.

Alright now.  The recipe calls for a pressure cooker.  We have one now for other reasons, but it’s nice to have for this recipe to get the lemon grass cooked soft and to help all of the flavors come together more quickly.  If you don’t have a pressure cooker, that’s okay.  Just make sure you really have that lemon grass chopped up fine and then be prepared to simmer the liquids with a good lid on the pot for maybe 1/2 hour or so.

How many pressure cookers does a person buy in one lifetime?  Not many.  This is my first, but I can heartily recommend it.  These things have come a long way in since the early days and can be much quieter and extremely safe.  Gone are the days where the heavy thimble bounded around on top of the pressure cooker and spaghetti sauce paints the walls in an inadvertent explosion.  This model from Kuhn is nearly silent.

Instead of the 3 cups of chicken broth the Epicurious recipe calls for, I put in four cups which amounts to the entire carton of chicken stock if you buy it that way.  I need more stock because of the rice that we’re adding later.  Add in all of the other ingredients to the pot…13.5 oz can of unsweetened coconut milk, 3/4 cup chopped green onions, 2.5 tbsp of your favorite curry powder, 1.5 tbsp of chopped lemon grass, and 1 tbsp minced or grated ginger.

A word about coconut milk – Don’t buy low fat coconut milk and if the truth be told, I don’t buy organic coconut milk either.  Both counts give up less flavor.  Perhaps one of you can make a suggestion for a good organic coconut milk with great flavor.  I would love to hear it.

You can bring the soup to a boil and put the lid on the cooker, or just throw it all in and crank the heat.  With my pressure cooker once it has come up to pressure then simply the lowest heat on the burner will keep it there.  Your mileage will vary.  The photo below shows my model and what the cooker looks like when it’s at pressure.  As the pressure comes up, the little column in the middle starts to rise.  Half pressure is at the first red bars.  Full pressure is at the second set of red bars.  This model has an automatic pressure release if things get going too much and it will make a slow hissing sound as it lets off steam.

Once the pot has come up to pressure, reset the heat to low and let it pressure cook for about 10 minutes.  Again, not precise, but the main thing we’re doing here is getting the flavors together and softening up the lemon grass.

Next you can turn your attention to the prawns.  If you have a Costco or other warehouse store or a particularly good fish counter, you’ll have a good selection of different kinds of shrimp or prawns.  Shrimp is sold on a numerical system where the number equates to the range of how many pieces per pound you will get.  Higher numbers mean the shrimp is smaller.  Lower numbers give you big shrimp per pound, but fewer individuals.  For this recipe I’ve found that the 13-15 range works really well.  This is because I don’t like the texture of little shrimp and love the meatier prawns.  Also, small shrimp don’t really have the flair that this dish needs.   You can get larger shrimp than 13-15, but they get unwieldy and much more expensive for no extra value.  I would still serve a fork and knife with this dish along with a good soup spoon so that it’s possible for your guests to cut the shrimp into pieces.

Depending on how you buy the shrimp you may be in for more work.  The type I buy at Costco still are in the shell, but they have been de-veined.  The process of de-veining slices the shell open on the back.  This slice makes it very easy to peel the prawn.  This is perhaps another reason why you want to buy a little larger shrimp since there is less to prep.  These particular guys can be de-shelled by hand without a knife.  I love to have plenty of prawns and so in this recipe I will measure out about 1.25 lbs of prawns (shell on weight).

Your shrimp is now ready.  On a cutting board, slice a couple of limes in half and reem them or squeeze the heck out of them into small bowl.  We’re looking for about 3 tbsp of fresh squeezed lime juice.  Avoid the temptation of the bottle, but by all means use it if that’s what you have.  Fresh will taste better.

While you’re at it, use a third lime and slice it into wedges for a garnish and a little extra pop for those who really like it bright.

You can use the quick-release method of bringing your pressure cooker down by running cool water over the lid and sides.  When the pressure is released remove the top.  Everything will be together nicely and you’ll have a nice bright yellow soup base to finish

Now, go ahead and put the prawns in to start cooking in the hot soup.  Depending on whether they are near room temperature or just out of the refrigerator you may need to put the pot back on low heat to make sure they get cooked through.  You definitely do not need to bring it back to a boil as that would easily overcook the prawns.

Add the lime juice and 6 oz of spinach.  The spinach amount is not precise.  It will wilt down so put a good amount in.  But you can add more or less depending on how much green you want.

Add your rice.  Again, you can add less or even leave it out if you want.  Stir the prawns, rice, and spinach around to get them mixed together.

It’s always good to start sampling the product at this point.  You may want to add some more lime juice or even perhaps a dash of salt.  I’ve cooked this many times and it can and will taste different each time, so use your taste buds to show you the way.

Use a flat soup ladle to dish this up.  You may need to reach into the bottom to pull up some rice for each bowl or selectively pull shrimp out to balance everything so one guest doesn’t get jealous of the next for having more.  To your taste, use some additional chopped onion chives and chopped cilantro as a garnish over the top.

In summary, this is a great first Thai soup dish to make.  It’s quite easy and very forgiving.  It has many wonderful flavors.  It’s bright, just like what you think of with Thai dishes.  You have a lot of options to add your own taste and flair without messing it up.

Let me know how yours comes out.

What did I learn?

-I’ve been doing this recipe for quite some time.  There are a few things I keep in mind even after doing it many times.

• The flavors are so bright that the taste of this soup will change over the course of an hour.  Expect to be surprised as it goes, even when having the leftovers.
• Do some taste sampling soon after the last ingredients go in, particularly for lime flavor and salt.  There are times when I never add any salt and sometimes I do.  There are times when I add more lime or make sure that there is extra lime at the table for those people who like the extra pop.

- I learned that I was unsure of the difference between a shrimp and a prawn.  I found this article amusing that sort of clarifies the common usage of a big shrimp as being  a prawn, but there are more scientific distinctions.   For the type we’re using you’re probably not going to go wrong calling it a prawn.  http://elyclarifies.blogspot.com/2005/03/shrimp-vs-prawns.html

- This is also a great soup to be used as an appetizer.  Using a very small soup cup or ice cream cup, ladle soup into the bowl with some spinach and rice.  Then top it with a single prawn and sprinkle with cilantro.