This soup is suitable for vegetarians, yet it has all the food groups. The protein comes from tofu, the carbohydrate from noodles and the flavour from shitake mushrooms. It does not contain chilli, so this is one of the few Thai dishes suitable for children.

Ingredients for 2 people
1 Packet (100gms) of Tofu
1 Small Packet of Glass Nooddle
2 Carrots
100 gms. fresh soya bean shoots
5 Fresh Shitake Mushroom
1 Chicken Stock Cube (Or Vegetable stock cube for vegetarian)
1 Ltr. Water
2 Tablespoons Light Soy Sauce
1/2 Teaspoon of Sugar
A Pinch White Pepper

Preparation
If using dried shitake mushrooms, soak then for 12 hours to soften them.
1. Put the water and chicken stock cube in pan and boil it.
2. Take only 1/2 of the packet of glass nooddle and soak it in the plain cold water for 5 minutes to soften them.
3. Clean the vegetables and tofu and peel and chop the ingredients into bit sized pieces.
4. When the water is boiling add the tofu, carrots, glass noodles and shitake mushroom to the pan and simmer.
5. Simmer for 10 minutes until the carrots and mushrooms are cooked through. Remove from the heat
6. Add the light soya sauce and sugar.
7. Serve in a bowl with the soya bean shoots and a little pepper.

Shrimp Sour Curry is a traditional food of Central & Southern Thailand. Think of it as curried soup. Although the ingredients are the same for the two refions, the south of Thailand variation tastes more spicy because they add more dry chilli during cooking. The Central Thailand version is closer to sweet and sour soup and is the one given here. This is medium hot.

Ingredient For 2 People
50 gsm Sour Curry Paste.
800 ml. Water.
50 gms. Tamarind
8 Shrimp
50 gms. Pak Kra Chate (Or Green Vegetable)
50 Long Beans (Or green beans)
4 Oyster Mushroons
4 Tablespoons Fish Sauce.
2 Tablespoons Sugar.

Preparation
1. Clean the shrimp, ensure you cut the shell and remove the entrails which can spoil the appearance of the dish.
2. Clean the oyster mushrooms, pak kra chate, and long beans and chop into 3 cm pieces, set aside.
3. Mix the tamarind with water, squeeze until the water goes brown and taste sour. For this curry we need the sour tamarind water but not the tamarind, seive the mixture to remove the tamarind and place the sour water into a pan.
4. Add the sour curry paste to the pan and stir over the heat until the water boils.
5. When water start boiling, add the fish sauce and sugar in and taste it. You are aiming for sweet, sour, salty, spicy taste, you can adjust the sugar, salt and curry paste to achieve this.
6. Add the vegetables and shrimp and cook over the heat for 2 minutes.

This dish is a typical Thai style salad, consisting of bamboo, chilli, and mint and finished off with pan roasted peanuts. It is made with a Thai mortar & pestle, the larger sized Thai mortar is needed for this you cannot make it in a small western spice mortar. For this dish you will need toasted sticky rice, an ingredient explained in the ingredients menu.

Ingredients
100 gms Bamboo Shoots
10 gms Red & Green Chillis
4 Garlic Cloves
2 Small Red Onion
2 Tablespoons Old Fish Sauce
1 Tablespoon Fish Sauce
50 ml Water
10 gms. Spring Onion
5 gms. Mint
1 Tablespoon Peanuts
1 Teaspoon Lemon Juice
1 Tablespoon Toasted Sticky Rice

Preparation
1. Put a frying pan on a very high heat and add the chilli, garlic, and red onion.
2. Fry for 5 minutes then pound it in a Thai mortar to break down the mixture.
3. Grate the bamboo finely.
4. Place the bamboo, old fish sauce and water into a cooking pot, and boil it for 5 minutes.
5. Take the bamboo mixture and add to the mortar. Pound the whole mixture, together with the fish sauce, lemon juice, toasted sticky rice.
6. Fry the peanuts in a small dry frying pan for 2 minutes until brown.
7. Serve the salad on a plate topped with the peanuts.

Serve With
Cabbage
Cucumber
Mint
Sticky Rice

This is a very authentic Thai recipe with a strong taste of old fish sauce. This can be off-putting to some people, old fish sauce is salted pickled fish kept for years. When it's cooked it loses some of its aroma, but uncooked it can be overwhelming. You may prefer to substitute bottled fish sauce instead of the old fish sauce, which is a distilled filtered version of old fish and has a very mild smell.

Ingredients for 2 People
200 gms Chicken Breast
150 gms Pickled Bamboo
300 ml Water
2 Tablespoons Old Fish Sauce
2 Tablespoons Fish Sauce
1/2 Teaspoon Salt
10 gms Galanga Root
10 gms Lemon Grass
2 Spring Onions
3 Fresh Chillies
3 Dry Chillies
1-2 Sprigs of Coriander Leaves
1 Tablespoon Oil
2 Kaffir Citrus Leaves

Preparation
1. Chop the chicken breast into small pieces and put into sauce pan.
2. Chop the lemon grass, galanga, into small pieces and pound the chilli and dry chilli in a Thai mortar and add to the pan.
3. Add the old fish sauce, fish sauce, salt, and oil.
4. Turn the heat on and simmer for 1 minutes.
5. Add the water into the pan and simmer for 5 minutes.
6. Add the bamboo and citrus leaves and cook for a further 10 minutes.
7. Turn off the heat
8. Chop the spring onions and coriander and add to the sauce.

Serve With
Hot Sticky Rice
You eat this by taking a lump of the rice with your fingers and a piece of the chicken from the sauce and dipping the rice in the sauce liquid.

This pork bone soup or stew is served with rice as a side dish. In Thailand, a large shared bowl of the soup is placed in the centre of the table and each person spoons out some potato, meat and soup onto their rice. You can also add a little flaked dry chilli when cooked to spice it up if you wish. The radish used in this soup is the large Chinese white radish (Daikon, Lo Bak) not the smaller salad radishes. If you can't obtain it, use swede or turnip instead.

Ingredient For 4 people
500 gms Pork Rib
200 gms Potatoes
180 ml Water
1 Pork Stock Cube
4 Tablespoons Light Soy Sauce
2 Tablespoon Sugar
1 Teaspoon Salt
5 Garlic Cloves
1 Teaspoon Pepper Corns
50 gms Large White Radish
20 gms Coriander Spigs
20 gms Spring Onions
1/2 Teaspoon White Pepper

Preparation
1. Boil the water with the stock cube in the soup pan.
2. Pound the garlic and pepper corns, in a Thai mortar and add to the pan.
3. Add light soy sauce, the sugar, salt, and slice the radish and addd to the pan.
4. Chop the pork bone into small pieces.
5. When the soup is boiling, add the pork bone and cooking for one and a half hours.
6. Chop the Potatoes into bite sized pieces and add into the soup.
7. Simmer for an extra 30 minutes.
8. When serving, chop the spring onion and coriander leaves finely and sprinkle over the soup. Also add a dsh of ground white pepper to the top.

This version of Tom Yum soup (the popular Thai spicy soup) is eaten in the North of Thailand, it is made with chicken rather than the shrimp (tom yum gung) eaten in the south and coast. If you prefer chicken its a good spicy soup.

Ingredients for 2 People
150 gms Corn Fed Chicken
8 Bird Chillies
2 Garlic Cloves
20 gms Lemon Grass
20 gms Galanga
4 Kaffir Citrus Leaves
2 Teaspoons Salt
2 Tablespoons Fish Sauce
3 Tablspoons Tamarind Water
1 Tablespoon Lemon Juice
50 gms Straw Mushrooms
300 ml Water

Preparation
1. Put water in a saucepan and bring to the boil.
2. Chop the lemon grass and galanga into 3cm lengths and add to the pot to make a soup base.
3. Pound the garlic and bird chillies and add into the soup.
4. Chop the chicken into bite sized pieces, then add to the soup and cook for 3 minutes.
5. Cut the straw mushrooms into half and add to the soup.
6. Add the fish sauce, salt, tamarind water, lemon juice, and kaffir leaves into the soup and cook for an additional 30 seconds.

Serve With
Hot fragrant Rice

This is Jok, a rice soup, made with mushrooms. It's normally cooked for a very long time so that the rice becomes mushy. However to make it easier, I've cooked it normally, and run it through a blender to break the rice grains.

Ingredients for 2 People
150 gms Rice
4 Shitake Mushrooms
500 ml Water
1 Chicken Stock Cube (Or Vegetable stock cube for Vegetarian)
Chopped Coriander Leaves (Optional)
Chopped Ginger Root (Optional)
Fried Garlic (Optional)

Preparation
1. Soak the shitake mushrooms in water for 10 minutes.
2. Boil the rice in the water until cooked. To make the smoother texture of Jok, run the cooked rice through a food processor, or hand blender for a minute.
3. Cook it for a second time on a low heat. Add the chicken stock cube and stir until it is dissolved. If the mixture dries out, add a little more water.
4. Slice the mushrooms, add to the rice soup and cook for 5 minutes longer.
5. When the soup is served, garnish it with chopped coriander, thin slices of ginger root, and fried garlic.

What's you're favorite fresh mushroom? If your answer is 'white cap mushrooms', then please move on to the next recipe - this recipe isn't for you! This is a soup made from fresh flavour mushrooms, that are toasted, then pounded in a Thai mortar to bring out the flavours, and is usually eaten with sticky rice. I used rovellons, they have a soft texture that firms up when toasted, making them ideal.

Ingredients for 2 People
70 gms Fresh Mushroom (Rovellons, Shitake, Porcini...)
1 Small Red Onion
2 Garlic Cloves
4 Chillies
2 Tablespoons Fish Sauce
1 Teaspoon Lemon Juice
1 Teaspoon Toasted Sticky Rice
1 Tablespoon Chopped Coriander Leaves
1 Tablespoon Chopped Spring Onions

Preparation
1. Sliced the mushrooms, garlic, the small red onion and chop the chillies into halves and mix together.
2. Place the mix onto aluminium foil and grill for 2-3 minutes.
3. Now move the mixture into a Thai mortar and pound them to a pulp, you may find it better to pulp the garlic, onion and chillies first, if the mushrooms are quite soft.
4. Add the fish sauce, lemon juice and toasted sticky rice to the mortar and pound 2-3 times more to blend them.
5. Put into a serving bowl and garnish with chopped spring onion and chopped coriander leaves.
6. This is great to eat as finger food with sticky rice, you can take some stick rice in your hands and dip it into the mix, taking some of the mushroom pulp to eat.

Serve With
Sticky Rice
Cucumber
Small Green Aubergines
Green Bean
Lettuce
Cabbage

This is a cinnamon soup with egg pork and salad greens, and added croutons of deep fried, very crispy, pork. It's more like a main course than a soup. A common ingredient of this soup is congealed pork blood, if you can't find it, you can either use blood sausage or omit it altogether. In Thailand you will usually be offered all the ingredients, including the blood, however you can reduce the ingredients down to the minimum as long as you keep the main flavours, crunchy pork, egg and cinnamon.
The best way to eat it is with a little dry flaked chilli added to spice it up, and a little vinegar to add a sour note. You will need to add 'triangle noodles' - these are thick noodles that curl up in the soup as they cook. If you can't find them use a thick rice noodle instead.
Don't be daunted by this recipe. It's not as complicated as it appears!

Ingredients for the Meat
50 gms Pork Meat
50 gms Pork Kidney
50 gms Pork Liver
50 gms Pork Blood
200 gms Pork Meat With Fat and Skin Attached.
5 Boiled Eggs

Ingredients for Soup
2 Ltr Water
3 Cinnamon
3 Star-Anise
2 Chicken Stock Cubes
1 Teaspoon Peppercorns
4 Garlic Cloves
2 Coriander Roots
5 Tablespoons Fish Sauce
4 Tablespoons Light Soy Sauce
2 Tablespoons Dark Soy Sauce
2 Teaspoons Salt
4 Tablespoons Brown Sugar
3 Tablespoons Chopped Coriander Leaves
3 Tablespoons Chopped Spring Onions

Ingredients for Noodle
200 gms Triangle Rice Noodle
500 ml Water
2 Teaspoons Corn Flour

Preparation For Meat
1. Into a saucepan with the water, put the pork meat, kidney, liver, pork blood and pork-fat-skin. Bring to the boil, add 1 tablespoon salt.
2. Cook for 8 minutes, remove and cut the pork meat, kidney, liver and pork blood (but not the fatty pork) into bite sized pieces and set to one side.
3. Deep fry the fatty pork until it is very crunchy, then cut it into thing strips and put with the rest of the meat This adds the crunchy texture to the soup.

Preparation for Soup
1. Boil water with the chicken stock cubes, salt and brown sugar.
2. Pound the garlic, coriander root and peppercorns until finely ground, then add to the boiling water.
3. When the water is boiling again, add the fish sauce, light soy sauce, dark soy sauce, cinnamon, star-anise and eggs.
4. Simmer for 20 minutes, the longer you cook it, the more the eggs will take on the flavours of the soup and become darker. If you can its a good idea to leave the soup and eggs overnight to really infuse with the tastes.

Preparation For Noodles
1. Boil the water, add the noodles.
2. Cook for a few minutes until the noodles are cooked through (you can taste one to see if it is cooked).
3. Mix the corn flour with 4 tablespoons cold water and add to the soup. Switch off the heat.

Serving the Dish
Into a soup bowl, put some noodles, some of each type of the meat, slice the egg into quarters and put some egg into the bowl. Now spoon over some of the soup, and top off with some chopped coriander leaves and some chopped spring onions. Your guests can then add dry flaked chilli to their personal taste, a little vinegar or sugar to adjust the sourness and even sliced lettuce and soya bean shoots to add more vegetables if they wish.

Serve With
Vinegar
Sugar
Flake Chilli
Lettuce
Soya Bean Shoots

The pork parcels in this soup give it a much more substantial bulk than a regular soup. More like a main course, indeed thats how we eat it, as a main course in its own right. You can buy pork parcel ready made from Asian supermarkets and keep them frozen until needed if you don't wish to make them. Alternatively you can make a big batch and use them as needed, this is what I do.
Pickled garlic water is the pickling juice used to pickle garlic, it adds a sour taste and strong garlic scent. If you do not have pickled garlic to hand, use a dash of vinegar.

Ingredients for Parcels
50 gms Pork Mince
4 Garlic Cloves
1 Teaspoon Black Pepper Corns
1 Teaspoon Salt
100 gms Wheat Flour
1 Egg
2 Tablespoon Oil

Ingredients for Soup
150 gms Pork Back Bone
2 Litres Water
2 Teaspoons Black Pepper Corns
4 Garlic Cloves
2 Coriander Roots
50 gms Chinese Radish
5 Tablespoons Light Soy Sauce
5 Tablespoons Fish Sauce
1 Teaspoon Salt
1 Teaspoons Sugar
4 Tablespoons Pickled Garlic Water
2 Chicken Stock Cubes
2 Tablespoons Chopped Coriander Leaves
2 Tablespoons Chopped Spring Onions
100 gms Soya Bean Sprouts
100 gms Lettuce

Preparation of Parcels
1. Mix the flour with the egg and oil. Knead it until the flour forms a smooth dough and leave it to rest for 5 minutes. In order to prevent a skin forming on the dough, moisten a cloth and use it to cover the bowl the dough is resting in.
2. Pound the garlic with the pepper corns and add to the pork mince and salt. Mix well together to form our filling.
3. Roll the dough flat and thin, and cut out 5cm squares.
4. Into each square dollop a little of the filling, fold the edges over and crimp.

Preparation Soup
1. Boil the water with the stock cube until it is dissolved.
2. Pound the garlic, coriander root and pepper together. Add to the stock.
3. Clean the pork bone and add to the soup, together with the light soy sauce, fish sauce, salt, sugar, pickled garlic water and chinese radish.
4. Simmer it for 1 1/2 hours.
5. When you are ready to serve, put the pork parcels into the soup and simmer it for 5 minutes.
6. Cook the beansprouts in the soup too, they only need a few seconds in the water, before you should scoop them out.
7. Take out the pork parcels, soya beansprouts, and some of the stock into a soup bowl. Add some chopped coriander, sliced lettuce, and chopped spring onion to serve.

Serve With
Fried Garlic
Dried Chilli Flakes
Vinegar

This is another Isan dish from north eastern Thailand. It is a slow cooked soup made with pork, chinese green leaf cabbage, and shitake mushrooms. In Isan it's traditional to eat soups like this with sticky rice, the soup is used as a dip for the rice. Isan food is usually in this style, big on flavour, low on presentation.

Ingredients for Large Family
1000 gms Pork Bone For Soup
1.5 ltrs Water
1 Stock Cube
2 Coriander Roots
1 Teaspoon Black Pepper Corns
3 Garlic Cloves
5 Tablespoons Light Soy Sauce
4 Tablespoons Oyster Sauce
2 Teaspoons Salt
2 Teaspoons Sugar
4 Shitake Mushrooms
30 gms Chinese Radish
1000 gms Green Chinese Cabbage
500 gms Spinach

Preparation
1. Soak the dried shitake mushrooms for 10 minutes.
2. Pound the garlic with the black pepper corns and coriander roots until well ground and put into a large soup pan, together with the water.
3. Bring to the boil, add salt, sugar, light soy sauce, oyster sauce and the stock cube and boil on a high heat.
4. When the water is boiling, clean the pork bone and add to the pan.
5. Peel the chinese radish, slice it into 3 cm lengths and put into the soup.
6. Add the shitake mushrooms to the soup and simmer for 1 hour.
7. Then chop the green chinese cabbage into 4 cm lengths and the spinach and put into the soup.
8. Simmer for 30 more minutes.
9. Serve warm.

This egg soup is a traditional dish from the Isan province. The main part is egg, but the taste is of spicy fish sauce. This is peasant food, a cheap dish eaten by farmers and labourers, rather than a show dish.

Ingredients
3 Eggs
5 Bird Chillies
2 Tablespoons Chopped Lemon Grass
5 Tablespoons Fish Sauce
1 Teaspoon Salt
1/2 Teaspoon Sugar
1 Teaspoon Lemon Juice
1 Tablespoon Chopped Dill
300 ml Water
Pickled Bamboo Slices (Optional)

Preparation
1. Pound the chillies with the chopped lemon grass until well pulped.
2. Into a saucepan, place the water, and the pounded chilli mix and bring to the boil.
3. Add the fish sauce, salt and sugar.
4. Mix the eggs to break up the yolk and white. Then add to the saucepan.
5. Add the lemon juice, and optional pickled bamboo, and cook for 1 minute.
6. Garnish with chopped dill, chopped spring onions and chopped coriander leaves.

Serve With
Hot Steamed Sticky Rice

This is a typical Isan soup made from slices of pickled bamboo, three layered pork (meat with rind and fat still attached) and a stock seasoned with fish sauce.

Ingredients
75 gms Pork Three Layer
30 gms Pickled Bamboo Slices
250 ml Water
4 Tablespoons Fish Sauce
1/2 Teaspoon Salt
1/2 Teaspoon Sugar
1 Tablspoon Old Fish Sauce
2 Garlic Cloves
4 Big Red Chillies
1 Tablespoon Chopped Coriander Leaves

Preparation
1. Boil the water add the fish sauce, old fish sauce and salt.
2. Pound the garlic and chillies in a Thai mortar and add to the boiling water.
3. Chop the pork to a bite sized pieces and add to the pan.
4. Add sugar and the pickled bamboo.
5. Boil for 8 minutes, the garnish with chopped coriander leaves just before serving.

Serve With
Fragrant Rice Or Sticky Rice

The tofu adds a lot of bulk to this tofu soup, and the shitake mushrooms add a lot of flavour.

Ingredients
40 gms Tofu Chopped into Small Squares
300 ml Water
2-3 Tablespoons Sweet White Wine
10 gms Fish Stock Cube
10 gms Seaweed
10 gms Finely Chopped Shitake mushroom
2 Tablespoons Chopped Carrot
1 Tablespoon Chopped Spring Onion

Preparation
1. Put the fish stock cube into water, add the white wine and bring to the boil.
2. When the water is boiling add the tofu, seaweed, carrot, shitake mushroom, spring onions and simmer for 5 minutes.
3. Serve hot.

This should probably be in the Western Influence section because we only eat potatoes from western influences. This soup is made from mashed potatoes and a sauce and is one of my mothers favorite dishes.

Ingredients
6 Peeled Potatoes
Salt to Taste
1/3 Teaspoon Black Pepper
1/3 Teaspoon Ground Aniseed
350 ml Milk
5 Tablespoons Butter

Preparation Mashed Potato
1. Place the potatoes in a saucepan of water. Boil until cooked.
2. Drain them, mash them and salt them to taste. (I don't think I have to explain how to make mashed potatoes to English people!).
3. Add the butter and milk and blend with a hand blender.
4. For this recipe you need mashed potatoes that are nearly liquid. So keep adding milk and blending until the potatoes are runny.
5. Season with the pepper and ground aniseed.

Ingedients For Gervi Sauce
300 ml Chicken Fat (From Roasting)
400 ml Chicken Stock
3 Tablespoons Wheat Flour
1/3 White Pepper
1 Teaspoon Salt
2 Tablespoons Cream

Preparation For Sauce
1. Heat the chicken fat & stock in a pan mixed with the wheat flour.
2. Bring to the boil to form a thick sauce.
3. Remove from the heat, add the salt, pepper and cream and mix.
4. Put a scoop of potato in a bowl and pour the sauce over it.

This dish uses Thai green winter melon, a non sweet melon with a more pithy texture than other varieties. It's sort of a pithy version of a cucumber. If you can't find it, use unripe courgettes instead.

Ingredients for 2 People
120 gms Chicken Breast
150 gms Thai Green Winter Melon
4 Red Chillies
2 Garlic Cloves
1 Tablespoon Chopped Lemon Grass
1 Tablespoon Chopped Galangal
4 Tablespoons Fish Sauce
1 Tablespoons Chopped Coriander Leaves
1/2 Teaspoon Sugar
250 ml Water
1 Tablespoon Oil

Preparation
1. Pound the garlic together with the chilli, lemon grass and galangal.
2. Chop the chicken breast into bite sized pieces, and place in a saucepan together with the pounded ingredients.
3. Add the oil and fry in the saucepan over a medium heat until the chicken is half cooked.
4. Cut the melon in bite sized pieces.
5. Then add the water, melon pieces, fish sauce and sugar and simmer for 5 minutes longer before serving.

Serve With
Thai Sticky Rice

You've seen this soft rice soup before in recipes with other flavours, we eat a lot of it in Thailand. It is rice cooked with lots of water, for a long time, typically overnight. The rice softens to become almost a purée of rice. As a shortcut, you can also use rice semolina, or make fragrant rice with too much water and blend it using a hand blender to break up the grains. The main flavour in this dish is the preserved cabbage which has a sweet, tangy flavour, it's available from Asian grocers.

Ingredients
60 gms Rice Semolina
40 gms Chopped Ham
1 Chicken Stock Cube
1/3 Teaspoon White Pepper
20 gms Chopped Preserved Cabbage
2 Tablespoons Chopped Spring Onions
400 ml Water

Preparation
1. Put the water into a saucepan and bring to the boil.
2. Add the chicken stock and stir until dissolved.
3. Add the rice semolina and boil for 10 minutes.
4. Then put the chopped ham, preserved cabbage, white pepper and chopped spring onions in and serve.

We use many different types of tofu in Thai cooking, this soup uses, soft tofu, sometimes called silk tofu. Soft tofu is has more water and is not as firm as regular tofu, making it useful for desserts and soups but unsuitable for frying and stir-frys.

Ingredients
40 gms White Soft Tofu
50 gms Pork Mince
3-4 Shitake Mushrooms
400 ml Water
4 Cloves Garlic
1 Teaspoon Black Peppercorns
2 Tablespoons Light Soy Sauce
1 Tablespoons Chopped Coriander Leaves

Preparation
1. Bring the water to a boil in a saucepan.
2. Pound the garlic with the black peppercorns and add to the boiling water.
3. Spoon balls of the mince and drop the balls into the soup.
4. Add the light soy sauce, tofu, shitake mushrooms and simmer for 5 minutes.
5. Garnish with the chopped coriander when serving.
6. Another variation is to add a little rice before cooking to make a thicker soup.

Serve with
Thai Fragrant Rice

Be careful not to cook this soup too long, bitter melon is an aquired taste and the more you cook it the more bitter it gets. We Thais think of it as health food, we think the bitterness is good for you.

Ingredients
100 gms Bitter Melon
50 gms Chicken Breast
30 gms Chopped Carrot
2 Garlic Cloves
1/2 Teaspoon White Pepper
1 Chicken Stock Cube
350 ml Water

Preparation
1. Boil the water with the stock cube.
2. Mix the mince with the garlic, chicken breast and white pepper. Blend to a smooth mixture.
3. Cut the melon in half, take a teaspoon and scoop out the centre seeds.
4. Stuff the hollowed out melon with the chicken breast mixture.
5. Place the halves into the boiling water, with carrot slices and simmer for 10 minutes.
6. When serving, I like to cut the melon into slices for better presentation then put it back into the soup.

Serve With
Thai Fragrant Rice

A simple dish of soup made from seaweed. Seaweed is a good source of essential minerals and this soup is a nice way to eat it.

Ingredients
100 gms Kelp Seaweed
1 Tablespoon Fish Stock Powder ( A Japanese Made Stock )
1 Tablespoon Chopped Spring Onion
2 Garlic Cloves Chopped
1 Teaspoon Sesame Oil
300 ml Water

Preparation
1. Put the sesame oil into the saucepan, add the fish stock powder, and garlic and heat for a few seconds.
2. Add the water, and bring to the boil, then simmer for 5 minutes.
3. Add the sliced kelp and spring onions and simmer for 2 more minutes then serve.

This is a good fresh soup made from tuna and pickled your ginger root. A very typical Thai soup with seafood and Thai flavours.

Ingredients for 2 People
2 Cans of Tuna in Water
3 Garlic Cloves
2 Small Red Onions
1 Teaspoon Black Peppercorns
1 Teaspoon Coriander Seeds or Root
1 Teaspoon Shrimp Paste
2 Tablespoons Fish Sauce
1 Tablespoon Palm Sugar
1 Teaspoon Salt
5 gms Tamarind Pulp
300 ml Water
20 gms Sliced Ginger
1 Tablespoon Chopped Chilli
1 Tablespoon Chopped Coriander Leaves

Preparation
1. Heat water on a medium heat, pound the garlic, red onion, black peppercorns, coriander seed and shrimp paste together and add to the water and boil.
2. When the water is boiling, add the tuna, fish sauce, palm sugar, salt, and tamarind. Stir while you bring it back to the boil, then add the sliced ginger, chopped chillis and coriander leaves.
3. Serve immediately.

Serve With
Thai Fragrant Rice

If you've eaten canned fish soup, you've are probably eating fish heads! Since factory made soups use all the parts of the fish just like we do. In Thailand we're no so squeemish about these things, the heads of the fish make a great soup and meat under the mouth and at the top of the head has some of the strongest fish flavours of the whole fish. After yesterdays western sausage pizza recipe, I thought this would make a nice contrast.

Ingredients
2-4 Fish Heads
300 ml Water
5 Bird Chillies
2 Red Onions
2 Garlic Cloves
10 gms Galangal
10 gms Lemon Grass
10 gms Sweet Basil
10 gms Thai Grapow Basil
10 gms Dried Whole Chillies
2 Kaffir Leaves
2 Teaspoons Salt
2 Tablespoons Fish Sauce
2 Tablespoons Lemon Juice

Preparation
1. Put water into saucepan and heat.
2. When the water is boiling, pound the garlic, red onion, galangal, lemon grass and add to the boiling water.
3. Clean the fish heads, put into the boiling water and cook for 10 minutes.
4. Add salt and fish sauce and boil for another minute. Pound the bird chillies and dried chillies in a Thai mortar. Add the pounded mix to the water and mix.
5. Finally remove from the heat, add the sweet basil, kaffir leaves, grapow basil leaves, lemon juice and serve.

The Chinese people sell ready made seasonings for this soup, 4 dried herbs ready prepared to make a soup stock. In Thai we adopted this dish and added some chilli (well don't we always!).

Ingredients
200 gms Pork Bones for Soup
50 gms Lotus Nuts
2 Teaspoons Salt
4 Tablespoons Fish Sauce
2 Tablespoons Light Soy Sauce
2 Teaspoons Sugar
1/2 White Pepper
1 Pikle Garlic
10 gms Chinese Soup Herbs
1000 ml Water

Preparation
1. Soak the lotus nuts overnight to soften them.
2. Clean the pork and cut into short pieces.
3. Boil 1 litre water in a sauce pan, add the fish sauce, light soy sauce, salt sugar, pickled garlic, white pepper and the chinese herbs and bring back to the boil.
4. Add the chopped pork bone and simmer until the water has reduced to 500ml (half).
5. Add the lotus nuts and simmer for another 30 minutes.

Serve With
Thai Fragrant Rice
Dried Flaked Chilli to Taste

3 layer pork is a common ingredient in Thai food. On this site, I usually translate it to 'pork with fat and rind' in recipes. Here I've made tom-yum out of it, cook the soup long and slow so that the pork is good and soft.

Ingredients
300 gms Three Layer Pork
5-8 Chillies
2 Garlic Cloves
10 gms Red Onion
10 gms Chopped Galangal Root
10 gms Chopped Lemon Grass
2-4 Kaffir Leaves
4 Tablespoons Lemon Juice
5 Tablespoons Fish Sauce
1 Teaspoon Salt
10 gms Chopped Coriander Leaves
400 ml Water

Preparation
1. Peel and chop the onion and garlic.
2. Into a large saucepan, put the water, galangal, lemon grass, onion and salt. Bring to the boil.
3. Cut the 3 layer pork into 5cm pieces, and add to the boiling soup.
4. Simmer for 30 minutes to 1 hour until the pork is soft.
5. Add all the remaining ingredients and simmer for 5 more minutes.
6. Serve with rice, or eat on it's own.

We call this a soup in Thailand, because its cooked in liquid. But as you can see from the photograph, it's a dry soup, the stock is boiled off and the ingredients served as a thick salsa usually served with sticky rice.

Ingredients
75 gms Young Jack Fruit
3 Chillies
2 Garlic Cloves
1 Red Onion
1 Tablespoon Fish Sauce
50 ml Old Fish Sauce
250 ml Water
Chopped Coriander Leaves
Chopped Spring Onion
1/4 Teaspoon Sugar
1 Tablespoon Lime Juice
1 Teaspoon Pounded Toasted Sticky Rice

Preparation
1. Mix the water and old fish sauce, bring to the boil, add the jack fruit and simmer for 15 minutes to boil off the liquid.
2. Grill the garlic, chillies and red onions until they are softened. Pound them in a Thai mortar until they are well pulped. Add the jackfruit and continue pounding. Add the fish sauce, sugar, lime juice, toasted sticky rice, chopped coriander and chopped spring onions and serve.

This is a typical use of pickled limes, I've included one in the picture, although it's only for flavoring and is not normally eaten.

Ingredients
2 Pickle Limes With It's Pickling Juice ( 100 ml )
300-500 gms Pork Ribs
1-2 litres Water
1 Chicken Stock Cube
1 Pork Stock Cube
Pinch White Pepper
Baby Sweet Corn

Preparation
1. Boil the water, add the chicken stock cube, pork stock cube and white pepper.
2. Clean the pork, chop into 4 cm pieces, add to the boiling water.
3. Add the pickling water of the limes, but not the limes themselves - we will add those later.
4. Simmer for 1-2 hours until the meat on the ribs is very soft.
5. Add the baby corn, and the whole pickled limes. Simmer for 2-3 minutes.

Serve With
Fragrant Rice or Noodles

If you've made one of my stir fry dishes, you'll probably have some broccoli left over. What to do with it? Why Broccoli cheese soup of course! This recipe is not Thai, after yesterdays spicy tofu I thought something more accessible would be better.

Ingredients
150 gms Broccoli
50 gms Cheese
50 gms Boiled Potato
1/2 Teaspoon Salt
2 Tablespoons Butter
500 ml Water

Preparation
1. Fry the butter and potatoes together and mash it with a fork as you fry it.
2. Blend or chop the broccoli finely, add it into the frying pan with the potatoes and panfry together.
3. Add the water to the pan, and the salt, chop the cheese and add that and stir and continue cooking in the pan slowly for 5 minutes until the cheese has melted and the soup is ready.

This is a great way to serve fresh forest mushrooms. When I was a child in Thailand, my grandmother would take me out into the forest in the very early morning and we would pick wild fresh mushrooms to cook for dinner. You can use any combination of flavorful mushrooms, or if those are difficult to buy, you can get mushrooms in a jar from a supermarket. But you'll appreciate this dish more if you go mushroom picking at 4am to make it!

Ingredient for 2 people
150 gms Mushrooms
(We used Oyster, Saffron Milkcap, Shiitake and Viscid)
400 ml Water
30 gms Galanga Root
30 gms Lemon Grass
2 Kaffir Citrus Leaves
3 Big Red Chillis
2 Bird Chillis
1 Tablespoon Sticky Rice
2 Tablespoons Tamarin Water
1/2 Teaspoon Salt
3 Tablespoons Fish Sauce (For vegetarian use Light Soy Sauce instead)
75g Bamboo Shoots

Preparation
1. Put the sticky rice into hot water to soak for 1-2 hours.
2. Chop the galanga and lemon grass, into 1cm lengths and pound them in a mortar with the chillies until you just break them up and release the flavours.
3. Add the pounded ingredients to a boiling pan, add the water, and bring the mixture to the boil.
4. Pound the sticky rice into fine pieces and add to the pan.
5. When the pan is boiling, add the mushroom, bamboo and add all the remaining ingredients.
6. Simmer for 5-8 minutes, until the mushrooms and bamboo are just cooked through.

Serve With
Sticky rice or fragrant rice.
It is better served warm, but you can also eat it cold together with sticky rice on a picnic.

This is a spicy chicken soup with coconut milk used to soften and add depth to the soup. A citrus flavour comes from Kaffir limes leaves and lemon grass. The spicey taste comes from the chilli, so you can adjust the chilli level to suit your own taste. The quantities are correct for a medium hot soup. The dish uses galanga root, which looks similar to ginger root and is sometimes referred to as Thai ginger. Don't be fooled, it is not ginger and you should not substitute ginger.
Like other Thai soups, rather than serve your guests a bowl of soup it is more normal to serve them a shared bowl and for them to use the soup by spooning it over rice to flavour the rice.

Ingredients for 2 People
100 gms Chicken Breast
100 ml Water
150 ml Coconut Milk
30 gms Galanga
30 gms Lemon Grass
30 gms Kaffir Leaves
1 Sprig Coriander
25 gms Bird Chilli
1 Tablespoon Lemon Juice
1 Teaspoon Salt
3 Tablespoons Fish Sauce
5 Cherry Tomatoes (Not Traditional)

Serve With
Fragrant Hot Rice

Preparation
1. Clean the chicken breast and chop it into strips.
2. Chop the galanga & lemon grass.
3. Pound the bird chilles in a mortar.
4. Put the water in pan and bring to the boil.
5. When water is boiling, add the galanga, lemon grass, kaffir and salt.
6. Bring the water back to the boil and add the chicken, fish sauce, lemon juice and coconut milk and simmer for 5 minutes until the chicken is thoroughly cooked.
7. Add chilles, cherry tomatoes, coriander and in simmer for a further 1 minute to let the flavours spread through the soup.

A very unusual soup, slightly spicy with the taste of cinnamon. The eggs make it a very filling meal rather than a soup, often served with rice to pad it into a full meal. This is something of an aquired taste, if cinnamon flavored boiled eggs are not for you, you may prefer to try one of the more common Thai dishes first and work up to this.

Ingredients for 2 people
1 Tablespoon of Cinnamon
4 Boiled Eggs
4 Piece of Brown Dry Tofu
2 Cloves Garlic
1 Pepper Corn
1 Tablespoon Chopped Coriander Leaf
1 Teaspoon Dark Soya Sauce
1 Tablespoon Light Soya Sauce
1 Level Teaspoon Salt
2 Level Tablespoon Sugar
1 Chicken Stock Cube (Or Vegetable Stock for Vegetarian)
200 ml. Water
1 Teaspoon Oil

Preparation
1. Pound the garlic, pepper corns, and coriander together in a pestle.
2. Remove the shell of the boiled eggs.
2. Put the water to boil and add the stock cube in a boiling pan.
3. Heat a frying pan, add the oil and the pounded garlic, pepper, cinnamon and coriander mix and fry.
4. Fry lightly until the garlic is softened.
5. Add the dark Soya sauce, light Soya sauce, salt, and sugar and stir it to mix it.
6. Add the whole boiled egg in fry them for a second to take on some of the flavours.
7. Put the fried ingredients into the boiling pan containing the chicken stock & water.
8. Cut the tofu into bite sized pieces and add to the boiling pan.
9. Boil for 10 minutes and turn heat on low for a gentle simmer for a further 30 minutes.
10. Leave it for cool then serve warm.

Suggestions
It is better to leave this to rest overnight for the cinnamon fragrance to infuse throughout the eggs.

Stop, don't run away! Although this dish is normally made with fish stomachs, Thais also make it with fried pork rind, the kind you can find as a snack next to crisps (chips) in your local supermarket. It's not particularly unusual to see odd parts of fish used in soups, think of shark fin soup in Chinese cuisine, so this dish is not as strange as it may seem, but still, if fish stomach puts you off, use pork rind gratons instead. Another item you may not be familar with is Maggi sauce, this is a Nestlé made dark seasoning sauce that is very popular in Thailand and is available worldwide.

Ingredients for 2 People
100 gms Fish Stomach or Fried Pork Rind 'Snacks'
500 ml Chicken Stock
50 gms Chicken Breast
50 gms Crab meat
50 gms Cooked Bamboo (e.g. Canned)
6 Hard Boiled Quail Eggs
2 Shitake Mushrooms
1 Tablespoon Maggi Sauce
1 Tablespoon Sugar
1 Tablespoon Light Soy Sauce
1 Tablespoon Dark Soy Sauce
1 Tablespoon Oyster Sauce
1 Teaspoon Salt
2 Tablespoons Corn Flour
20 gms Chopped Coriander Leaves

Preparation
1. Clean the fish stomachs very very well and soak in water for 30 minutes. You may need to soak and rinse the fish stomachs two or three times.
2. Boil the fish stomach for 5-10 minutes and clean again in cold water.
3. Soak the shitake mushrooms for 10 minutes and chop them into bite sized pieces.
4. Boil the chicken stock, add the shitake mushrooms, and the chicken breast.
5. When the chicken breast is cooked, remove it from the boiling stock and shred it into smaller pieces and set aside.
6. Continue to cook the chicken stock with the mushrooms until the mushrooms are so soft, they nearly break up in the stock.
7. Add the crab, bamboo, light soy sauce, dark soy sauce, oyster sauce, salt, Maggi sauce, and sugar.
8. Dissolve corn flour into 4 tablespoons of water and add to the soup, cook for 1 minutes to thicken it.
9. Serve the soup in a bowl with the shredded chicken meat and the boiled quail eggs added, and some chopped coriander to garnish.

Serve With
The following condiments are typically served for the guest to choose from:
Flaked Chilli
Vinegar
Sugar