Tom Kha Kai (Spicy chicken curry in coconut milk soup)

Tom Kha Kai (Spicy chicken curry in coconut milk soup) is really famous Thai dish and is one of the great food to cook. Tasty and not so spicy are the keys for success of this dish around the world. Here you will learn how to cook Tom Kha Kai. It's really easy! However, if you don't have much time to cook this awesome dish, you can use ready-to-cook "Tom Kha" soup from Lobo or Roi Thai which are convenient and easy to use. For Lobo, which is a top hit brand of Thais living abroad, you just add vegetable, coconut milk and chicken meat. For Roi Thai, just vegetable and chicken. Easy, eh?


Tom Kha Kai (Spicy chicken curry in coconut milk soup)

200 g. Chicken, sliced

3 cups Coconut milk

100 g. Galangal, sliced

1 tbs. Sugar

3 tbs. Fish sauce

3 Kaffir lime leaves

3 tbs. Lime juice

½ cup Lemongrass, sliced

1 tbs. Chili sauce

5 Bird’s eye chili, crushed

1. Boil coconut milk in the pot.
2. Add sliced galangal. Lower the temperature and cook for 3-5 minutes.
3. Add sliced chicken and cook until the chicken is done.
4. Add sugar, lime juice, fish sauce, chili sauce, sliced lemongrass, kaffir lime leaves, and crushed bird’s eye chili.

The real Thai taste of this wonderful dish should be a little bit sour of lime taste and sweet with the coconut milk. Some may add mushroom into the soup. Since dishes made with coconut milk as an ingredient are greasy when left cold, you should serve your terrrific dish with rice while it is still hot.  

This great food to cook cannot miss coconut milk. When I was a child, my family made fresh coconut milk from coconut fruit, but it is a hard work and take a lot of time (believe me!). Now there are many instant coconut milk cans. In Thailand we usually use "Chao Koh" brand and from my personal experience is the best. I have put this 2 links about Chao Koh below for your convenience. Both are 13.5 Oz. but one of them comes in 8 packs.

Tom Kha Kai needs kaffir leaves and lemongrass. You can buy them from amazon.com. Kaffir leaf sells in both fresh leaves and powder form. I have never use powder kaffir leaves, but jugding from the review it might be okay. Lemongrass is another herb. You can search and buy all of the herbs by using the search box on the right. However, if you love cooking Thai food and you have some space, you should grow them yourself because a lot of Thai recipes use them as ingredients (Thai lemongrass is realllyyyy easy to grow!) plus they make your garden more beautiful. Kill two birds with one stone!

Photo:

- http://www.sarnsilpcuisine.com/