Thai seafood soup

This is the first soup I have cooked in the steam oven and is a great example of how you can cook multi levels, with different ingredients all at different times.

I did do the Steamed salmon in ginger broth here where the other ingredients were cooked in the steam oven but the stock was boiled to reduce on the stove top.

This is a quicker version of the classic Tom yum goong without making a paste or your own stock, however fish or prawn stock is very easy to make and only takes 20 minutes to cook.  If you would like to make it, make sure you fry the prawn heads and shells until they turn red before you add the water and other flavourings.  You then need to pound out the shells in a sieve to extract as much flavour as possible.

If you have the smaller, narrow depth steam oven then you will need to cook your soup in a larger, deeper dish of your choice as your solid steamer tray is too small for this quantity.  Increase your time to 8 minutes as cooking time is increased compared to cooking in stainless steel.

Ingredients:  Serves 4

4 cups fish or prawn stock
2-3 bird’s eye chillies, seeds removed or to your taste
1 clove garlic, chopped finely
2 slices of ginger
4 spring onions, finely sliced
3 tbsp lime juice
1-2 tbsp. palm sugar or to taste
1-2 tbsp fish sauce or to taste (start with 1)
1 stick lemongrass, white part only smashed a little to ‘bruise it’
4 kaffir lime leaves, broken
500g fresh seafood of your choice (eg white fish, green prawns, salmon fillet etc)
Medium size packet (200g) thin bean thread or rice noodles (quantity is approx. a large handful each person)
Bunch of spinach, Asian bok choy or other greens
handful chopped coriander leaves
handful bean shoots (optional)
extra chilli to garnish (optional)

Method:

1. Combine stock, chillies, garlic, ginger, lemongrass, kaffir lime leaves, white part of spring onions only and palm sugar and steam @ 100°C 6 minutes on the bottom shelf.
2. If using rice noodles, soak them in boiling water.
3. In the soup, add the fish sauce & lime juice, taste the stock and adjust flavour.  It should have that Thai salty, sweet & sour hit.  Add the bean thread noodles if using and stir to soften in the stock.
4. Peel and devein the prawns, cut the fish into bite size pieces and place on perforated tray above the stock.  No need to add baking paper.  Cook @ 85°C for 2 minutes.
5. Slice your bok choy or spinach into bit size pieces and add in another tray for a further 2 minutes @ 85°C.  If using baby spinach there is no need to pre-cook.  Just place into the bottom of the bowl.  If your prawns are already cooked, add them now to warm through.
6. Ladle the soup into four bowls, removing the lemongrass, ginger and kaffir lime leaves and add the seafood and vegetables.

Garnish with the bean shoots, fresh herbs, spring onion tops, extra chilli and a wedge of lime.