Tom Yum Goong – Lemongrass and River Prawn soup

With thanks to my mother for giving me the wonderful cookbook from the Ginja Cooking School. Nestled on the beach front in Phuket, Thailand, this cooking school is most likely responsible for inspiring hundreds of people to add Thai cuisine into their cooking repertoire. Last week, with an urgent need to tame the lemongrass in our garden, my children and I made Ginja’s version of Tom Yum Goong. I talk over at Caro & Co about how introducing your children to the world’s different cuisines can be fun and provide a few tips on how to go about it. This recipe is a great starting point.

Tom Yum Goong is a spicy and sour lemongrass soup with river prawns. It’s probably one of Thailand’s most famous soups. It’s spicy, hot, sour and fragrant – such an exquisite combination. You can ramp up or tone down the heat of the dish depending on your family’s tolerance of spicy flavours. A few things to note. Ginja’s recipe initially appears a little tricky. They use “piece”, “stalk” and “slice” to denote quantities, and they don’t indicate how many their version serves. I guess that’s because the recipe is designed to be demonstrated rather than followed. So I’ve altered their recipe to make it easy to follow here and upped the quantities so it serves 4. Taste the soup as you go.

Tom Yum Goong
Serves 4

Ingredients:

4 large red shallots, peeled and cut into wedges
1 bunch of coriander roots, pounded to a rough paste in a mortar and pestle
Coriander leaves (for use as garnish)
4 stalks of lemongrass (soft white part only) sliced finely
1 medium knob of fresh galangal, finely sliced
100 grams of straw (Enoki) mushrooms
1-2 tablespoons of chilli paste (Sambal Oelek)
6 small Kumato tomatoes (cut into wedges)
4 tablespoons fish sauce
3-4 tablespoons grated palm sugar (can substitute with brown sugar)
1-2 tablespoon salt
12 green prawns peeled and deveined (River prawns if you can get them otherwise ocean prawns are fine)
4 kaffir lime leaves, central stalk removed, sliced finely
4 long red chillies sliced in half lengthways, seeds removed
1 litre quality chicken stock
8 tablespoons lime juice

Method:

Over the stove, heat the chicken stock in a deep soup pot
Add the shallots, coriander roots, galangal, lemongrass, chilli and hard simmer for 2 minutes
Add mushrooms, tomato and bring to the boil for 2 minutes
Season with fish sauce, salt, sugar and chilli paste. (Taste at this point and adjust ingredients if need be)
Turn heat down, add the prawns and hard simmer until prawns are cooked through.
Add the sliced kaffir lime leaf and stir through.
Season with the lime juice, garnish with the coriander leaves and serve immediately.

Tricks and tips:

Add a teaspoon of shrimp paste to more accurately reflect the taste of river prawns
For more flavour, pound the galangal and lemongrass before adding to the soup.
You can serve the soup with a small bowl of steamed Jasmine Rice on the side if you wish.

Garlic Prawns

I freely admit to taking advantage of my 8 year old daughter’s love of cooking. One of the first tasks I gave her in the kitchen was to peel garlic. To me it’s akin to ironing – a necessary evil. However my daughter loves it, especially when the garlic is local and fresh. My friend Patrice Newell grows some of Australia’s finest.

So, it was fortuitous that my daughter was nearby when my husband got a hankering for garlic prawns last week. We found a recipe on Taste.com.au which you can find here. Although, we played around with some of the ingredients, method and also with the quantities as I think they were way under on the garlic score. Here’s our version:

Serves 10-12
Ingredients

✮ 2-3 knobs of good quality butter
✮ 1 large bulb of garlic, cloves peeled and finely sliced
✮ 1 tsp chilli flakes or 1 fresh large red chilli, seeded and diced
✮ 1 and half tsp of sweet paprika
✮ 2kg medium green king prawns, peeled, deveined, tails intact
✮ 2-3 good glugs of semi-sweet sherry
✮ 1/3 cup of chopped flat-leaf parsley
✮ 1-2 tsp lime juice
✮ Crusty bread, to serve

Method

Combine the butter, garlic, chilli, lime juice and paprika in a large frypan. Heat over medium heat for a couple of minutes or until it becomes aromatic. Increase heat to high.

Add prawns. Cook, stirring, for 2 to 3 minutes or until prawns begin to turn pink. Add sherry and cook for a further minute until prawns are cooked through and sherry somewhat reduced. Remove from heat.

Toss through the parsley. Spoon prawn mixture into bowls. Serve immediately with crusty bread and a glass of 2009 Pillar Box White.

Leftovers – best Salmon fish cakes ever…

We spent the recent spring school holidays at our farm, 3 hours southwest of Sydney. Fish can be hard to come by down there, so when a friend offered to bring an entire Atlantic salmon down from Sydney, who were we to refuse? And he was an absolutely beauty. Clear of eye, with glistening skin and a wonderful “fresh from the sea” smell.

I made a simple Asian marinade, the kids wrapped him in foil (which took some doing as he was enormous) and baked him on the barbecue for around 40 minutes. Simple and delicious. Although despite 15 of us eating our fill, we still had leftovers. So next night, the gorgeous Jo Rushton of 6Wisdoms and I devised quite possibly the best salmon fish cake recipe ever. It’s simple, tasty and a guaranteed winner.

Asian salmon fish cakes
Serves 4

✮ Left over cooked Atlantic Salmon – pieced into flakes (approx 500gr)
✮ 1½ Spanish (red) onions – diced
✮ 5 shitake mushrooms – finely sliced
✮ 1 dsp lemongrass – chopped finely
✮ Small leek – finely sliced
✮ 1 large red chilli – seeds removed, chopped finely
✮ ½ tsp of dried chilli flakes for oomph (optional)
✮ 1 ½ cups of cooked jasmine rice
✮ Handful of chopped mint and coriander
✮ Juice of ½ lemon
✮ Knob of butter
✮ Splash of EVOO
✮ 150ml of white wine
✮ 1 egg – whisked
✮ Salt and pepper to taste

Saute the onions, mushroom, leeks and lemon grass until softened in the butter and oil.

In a separate bowl combine the salmon, rice, herbs, chilli, lemon juice and salt and pepper

When onion mix is softened, add white wine and reduce for a minute or so and then pulse the mix in a blender – just enough to mix – not puree.

Combine the salmon mix with onion mix and add the egg – combine and shape into patties.

Lightly fry the fish cakes in olive oil – approximately 4 minutes on each side or until golden brown.

Serve immediately with a green salad and a glass of pinot grigio.

Peas, pods and nasturtiums…

Spring is almost upon us, so in anticipation of its exquisite bounty, my 8 year old and I made some pea soup on the weekend. The fresh peas probably came from the other side of the world complete with gargantuan environmental footprints, but we couldn’t resist buying just a few and then used frozen peas. We recommend using all local fresh peas when they become available in spring.

I love this recipe for its simplicity. It takes no more than half an hour from kitchen to table and your child can lead the entire process depending on their age and ability.

Spring pea soup with nasturtiums

1000ml good quality chicken or vegetable stock
1 small pkt of frozen baby peas
4/5 large handfuls of fresh peas (keep pods)
2 potatoes, peeled and roughly chopped
2 brown onions, diced
2 cloves garlic, peeled and roughly chopped
handful nasturtium leaves (chopped finely) and flowers
handful mint leaves (chopped finely)
salt and pepper to taste
creme fraiche or double cream to serve
handful finely chopped red chilli (optional)

Bring the stock to a gentle boil. Add the peas (including the pods), onion, garlic, potatoes, half the mint and nasturtium* and reduce to a good simmer until everything is well-cooked. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Allow to cool slightly and blend in a food processor or use a bamix. Strain the mixture through a sieve as the pods (whilst adding great flavour) remain fibrous when cooked.

Reheat the soup if needed.

To serve, spoon into tea cups, add a dollop of creme fraiche, garnish with a little of the chopped chilli, the remaining mint, nasturtium and a nasturtium flower.

Beautiful!

Serves around 6.

* The nasturtium adds a lovely peppery flavour to the soup. Nasturtium is dead easy to grow, thriving in the unlikeliest of places.

Welcome to nofussfood

honest ~ simple ~ convivial

If you’re anything like me, recipes and articles on food, come in and out of your home (and head) with alarming frequency.  They’re everywhere – television, radio, books, magazines, movies, newspaper supplements and now with the advent of the internet and social media, it’s difficult to avoid them even if you wished to.   It would seem that the researchers are right, we can’t get enough of learning about food. We slavishly watch the plethora of cooking programmes aired on television and are always on the look out for new cookbooks, which in Australia, frequently outsell other genre. We aspire to live the lives led by some chefs, whilst we genuinely wish to be inspired by others. We are fascinated, but often repelled by the “power” of the food critic/restaurant reviewer.

So finally I have succumbed to my private desire to join the public conversation.  I enjoy growing, cooking, eating, talking about and serving food so much, that at the suggestion of a friend, I have established nofussfood to engage and share.

However, I won’t be doing it alone and it won’t just be recipes or the occasional review.  You’ll find contributions from friends, chefs, children, restaurateurs, providores and farmers. We’re particularly interested in discussing food as a way of building community and exploring what we feel is an increasing desire to return to the basics of honest yet flavourful food – uncluttered by complicated technique or fads. Food that makes one linger at the table and inspires conversation, friendships and connection.

We’ll tell you about the people who continue to inspire us and why.

We’ll discuss our view that the cult of celebrity has invaded the food industry to the point that it very often relegates the true star (food) to nothing more than a prop to chef egoism.

We hope you enjoy reading this blog as much as we enjoy putting pen to paper.

Caro Webster

Please note that we will ALWAYS acknowledge copyright and authorship of recipes unless we can’t ascertain such. If you see an unascribed recipe anywhere on this blog and know of its provenance, please let us know. We’ll gladly share the details. And we ask that if you reproduce this blog in any format, you repay the favour and acknowledge No Fuss Food.

Asian pan-fried prawns with linguine

I am uncertain as to the origin of this recipe. I recently re-found it scrawled (in my handwriting) on the back of a piece of paper, but can’t remember where it’s from. What I do know is that it’s the perfect dish for a simple Sunday night dinner or a quick and easy lunch when friends drop in unexpectedly.

Asian pan-fried prawns with linguine
Serves: 4
Kitchen to plate: 20-30 minutes

2 tbls peanut oil
1 large pinch sea salt
1 large knob of butter
6 cloves garlic, peeled and sliced finely
1 bunch holy basil, stalks removed
5 scallions (variously known as spring onion or shallots), finely chopped
5 kaffir lime leaves, crushed, then chopped finely
5 roma or truss tomatoes, diced
20g palm sugar (if unavailable, substitute with light brown sugar)
4tbls lime juice
2 limes, chopped in half or quarters for garnish
1 tbls fish sauce
1/2 cup quality fish stock (optional)
20 large green prawns, shelled, deveined (leave tails on). Your fishmonger can do this for you if you’re strapped for time
1 large handful fine linguine

Bring a large pot of salted water to the boil. Add the pasta and cook until just al dente.

Meantime, heat oil in a large, heavy-based frying pan. Add the garlic and scallions and cook until they begin to turn golden. Add kaffir lime and tomatoes, turn down heat and simmer for 5 minutes. Add palm sugar, lime juice, fish sauce and simmer for a further 10 minutes. If you wish the sauce to be “soupier” add the fish stock at this point. Taste, as you might decide to add a little more sugar.

Whilst the sauce is simmering, in a separate frying pan, melt the butter. Add the prawns and cook, tossing gently until they lose their transparency (no more than 10 minutes).

Add the cooked prawns to the sauce and toss gently until well combined.

Drain the pasta, place into the bottom of four deep pasta bowls. Spoon the prawns and sauce over the top. Garnish with the remaining holy basil and a wedge of lime. Serve immediately with a glass of Sauvignon Blanc or Pinot Grigio.

Posted by Caro Webster