Friday, April 23, 2010

Tom Kha or Tom Yum with Spiced Coconut Dumplings

Courtesy of Kitchen Dispensary http://thekitchendispensary.wordpress.com/

I love Thai food. The flavours are always so fresh and vegetables are often the star. Tom Yum is one of the cooked dishes I will eat if I am going out to dinner with friends and there are no raw options. It’s still all vegetables in a light spicy broth. But making a raw version of Tom Yum or Tom Kha is so easy to do at home. The main difference between the two is just the coconut which is used in Tom Kha. So if you are looking for a fat-free version just leave it out and perhaps add extra tomato for a Tom Yum version.

Tom Kha
Ingredients

Stock

  • 1 Stalk of Lemongrass
  • 1 Lime Leaf
  • 1 cm Piece of Ginger
  • 1 cm Piece of Galangal
  • 2 Stalks of Celery
  • 1 Cup Dried Coconut
  • 2 Cups of Spring Water
  • 1 Tomato
  • 2 Tbsp Lemon Juice
  • 1 Tbsp Miso Paste
  • 1/4 Tsp Cayenne Pepper

Fillings

  1. Choose from a variety of fresh raw shredded or spiralised vegetables like cucumber or zucchini noodles, carrot, mung bean sprouts, snow pea greens, cabbage, tomatoes, turnips or anything else that you have. In the picture above I used snow pea greens and cucumber sliced into wide noodles with a vegetable peeler and a few slivers of avocado.

Preparation

  1. Place the lemongrass, lime leaf, ginger, galangal, celery, coconut and water into a blender and process until well mixed. Strain through a nutmilk bag or a fine sieve.

  2. Pour the liquid back into the blender and add the remaining ingredients. Blend well.

  3. You may like to gently warm the stock to a low temperature before pouring over the vegetables, but it does just fine as a cold soup as well.

  4. Place your vegetables of choice into a bowl and pour the stock over the top.