Hot and Sour Chicken Soup (tom yum gai)
ต้มยำไก่

This is now our third week of the Friday Lunchtime Thai Menu blog. Every Friday, we will be bringing you pictures of our meal in the Paknam Web office. Our budget is around 100 baht which is about $3 for all of us. The first dish was tom yum gai. This is a hot and sour soup with chicken. The famous one is with shrimp which I often order when taking guests to restaurants. The recipe is also similar to another of my favourite soups, tom kha gai. Though the one today doesn't have any galangal (kha). Basically, you bring some chicken stock to the boil and add lemon grass and kaffir lime leaves. Then add the chicken and mushrooms. You season to taste with fish sauce, sugar and lime juice. At the end, add cherry tomatoes and the chilies. When you order tom yum at restaurants, you need to say what kind you want. The choice is either "nam sai" which is transparent soup or "nam kon" which is thick soup. I prefer the latter because they add coconut milk to thicken the soup. That is the version we had today. Very delicious and one of my favourites. At the roadside foodstall near my house, this cost only 20 baht. Down the market it might be 30-35 baht.