I HATE having my training plan derailed by a cold rearing its snotty head right into MY previously clear one. So, when I felt that familiar malevolent tickle, I pulled out all the stops to prevent it sticking around. I made this deeply aromatic, antimicrobial, bug-busting soup and – success! I halted my cold before it had even properly begun, and now I can be out enjoying the glorious sunny early evenings that London keeps giving me as gifts.
The ingredients for this might seem a bit intimidating, but it’s SUCH a quick, tasty, fortifying meal once you’ve got them that they’re well worth it.
Vegan Tom Yum Soup
Ingredients
- 2 tbsp tom yum paste
- 1 tsp grated galangal (a hot, peppery root. Substitute ginger if you can’t find it.)
- 1-2 birds eye chillis chopped
- 4 kaffir lime leaves (fresh, frozen or dried, whatever you can get hold of)
- Stalk lemongrass, bashed and bruised and cut into 5cm .
- Pinch sugar
- 1 pack ready cooked udon or some quick-cook rice noodles.
- Tofu (For the soup in the picture, I bought mine ready-fried from my favourite Japanese café)
- To serve:
- Squeeze of lime juice
- Handful of chopped coriander
Instructions
- Method
- Pour two bowlfuls of boiling water into a pan and add the first group of ingredients, leaving to simmer on a very low heat for 10 minutes. This will let all those hot, sour, flavours make a fantastic, deeply aromatic stock.
- Next add the noodles and the tofu, chopped into bite sized pieces. Turn up the heat slightly and cook through for 5 more minutes.
- Ladle into bowls and serve immediately with coriander and a squeeze of lime juice.
- Eat with spoons and chopsticks. Slurp your noodles carefully. I was once on a first date and accidentally lassoo-ed noodle soup into my ear with an udon noodle. There was a very sore ear and no second date.
This sounds SOOOOO good – but I was going to see how you got your tofu to look just like “real” restaurant tofu – and then I saw how you did it. Cheaters! 🙂 🙂
Yes, we fess up! We did actually go to a thai cooking class where we did it ‘from scratch’, but it involved about a litre of oil that you were supposed to filter and save for next time, and we just can’t be bothered, so we think we’ll stick with the current way… if you can find it in an asian supermarket, buy LOADS and freeze it for later.
Ha! Another question – where did you find vegan / vegetarian tom yum paste? I can only find stuff with fish sauce in 🙁 Oh go on – tell me you made your own so I feel totally inadequate!!
Ha – found some on Amazon! Just made this, and my nose and eyes are streaming (I’m not much good with chilli!) Beautiful taste though and I even fried some pressed tofu which tasted amazing. I’ll say thanks for the recipe when I can see again!
Esto suena MUY bueno, pero me puse a ver cómo compraste tu tofu para que se escorts y acompañantes Moron viera como el tofu de comedor “real”, y luego vi cómo lo hiciste.