Tom Yum Soup - Worldfoods Fusion Taste Team Challenge Number 3

This weeks challenge from WORLDFOODS, using their Tom Yum Paste, was Tom Yum Soup.  This soup is very appropriately named as is incredibly YUM!  It combines hot and sour flavours with fragrant herbs and fresh vegetables.  Typical ingredients are stalks of lemon grass, galangal, kaffir lime leaves, and chilli - but all the hard work has been done for you with WORLDFOODS Tom Yum Paste.  The soup is usually made with fish or chicken, but you can substitute tofu instead if you're vegetarian.  Mine was totally vegetables with no protein at all, I did however add a few extra mushrooms of different types and some other vegetables to bulk it out a bit.

Here are the delicious recipes we were given to base our dishes on:

May's Thai Tom Yum Goong

serves 2-4

4 tbsp Tom Yum Paste

200ml water

60g shrimps

60g straw mushrooms (or any variety you wish)

(optional 100ml coconut milk)

1. Stir in 4 tbsp of Tom Yum Paste in 200ml of water and bring to a boil.

2. Add in 60g of shrimp, peeled leaving tails on and 60g of mushrooms.

3. Simmer over medium heat until shrimp is cooked.

4. Stir in 100ml of coconut milk and bring to a boil.

5. Garnish with coriander leaves.

Alternatively follow the recipe for our Tom Yum fried rice if you're feeling a little more hungry or have more mouths to feed!

May's Tom Yum Seafood Rice

Serves 2-4

1 tablespoon olive oil

300g (10.7 oz) cooked rice, cooked as per pack instructions

100g frozen mixed vegetables

6 fresh mushrooms (optional), halved

1 thin slice ginger, finely chopped

100g (3.5oz) raw prawns, shelled and deveined

1.5 tbsp WORLDFOODS Thai Tom Yum Paste

1. Heat the oil in a frying pan or wok. Add ginger and stir fry till fragrant.

2. Stir in the tom yum paste and fry for 1 minute until aromatic. Add mixed vegetables, mushrooms, prawns and stir for 2 minutes.

3. Stir in rice and cook for further 5 minutes until heated through.

*Rice for frying can be cooked at least 2 hours in advance or the night before - this ensures that it is slightly less moist and better for stir-frying.  To pad this soup out you could add cooked noodles, barley or rice.

Please pay attention to the paste ratio guidelines - it should be roughly one teaspoon per person. Taste it as you go and if it is not to your liking, add some more water, or more paste. You can also add more or less coconut milk to suit your taste.

Here's a picture of my Tom Yum Soup that I made using the recipe provided above.  It smelt, and was, delicious!

It was much easier using the WORLDFOODS TomYum Paste than making the paste from scratch and tasted authentic.  I made some for a friend and I to eat for lunch as it was a rather miserable grey day and we were both fighting off the beginnings of a cold.  It brightened a rather chilly day, tasted delicious and cleared away some of our minor cold symptoms as well. Result!



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