Thai Khao Tom Kung Lae Kai, or rice soup with shrimp and chicken, is similar to Chinese congee but it is much lighter, brothier. Without any particular Thai ingredients — no fish sauce or lemongrass, no galangal, no lime or makrut leaves — it’s unmistakably Thai.
This is probably the best soup I have ever made. Usually, I can barely taste the food I prepare. By the time cooking is over, my olfactory and palate are overloaded and, at the table, experience nothing. But I did taste this soup. Like Tom said, it turned out to be the kind of a dish you would make a special trip to a restaurant for.
Puzzled, we’re looked at the list of ingredients and the process, saw nothing special, and tried to figure out what made it so different. These are our guesses:
— intense freshly made finishing garlic oil: 6 cloves for 4 tablespoons;
— preserved radish: sweetness and acidity but ever so subtle;
— ginger: sliced, not crushed, it added effervescence as an ingredient and texture not just as a flavor.
And chicken broth — a topic of its own that has been bothering me since years ago, on The Splendid Table, I heard Eileen Yin-Fei Lo talking about Chinese eateries keeping “a mother broth” and building it up for years the same way bakers treat their sourdough starter.
I tried many ways with chicken broth: a pressure cooker, a cooktop, various ratios of meat vs bone, different parts — feet, necks, knuckles. I compared black silkies with a regular bird, tried flavoring with cured ham, wolfberries, jujubes, dragon eyes, wines and oils, various chicken powders, seasonings, and stock bases. But I am yet to approach what we tasted in Flushing, Taipei, Beijing, Xi’an, or Chengdu. Not giving up on that mystery though, and looking forward to any advice and experiment.
WHAT WENT IN
— 4 Tbsp vegetable oil
— 6 garlic cloves, finely chopped
— 3 cilantro roots
— 3 garlic cloves
— 3 Thai dragon chilies
— 3 scallions
— 1/2 tsp white pepper
— 3/4 lb ground chicken
— 10 cups chicken stock
— 6 Tbsp light soy sauce
— 2 Tbsp preserved radish, chopped
— 3” piece of ginger, peeled, sliced
— 2 cups sliced Napa cabbage
— 10 oz raw shrimp, peeled, deveined, butterflied
— 2-3 cups cooked jasmine rice
— chopped scallions
— chopped cilantro
THE PROCESS
1. Heat the oil in a small frying pan and fry finely chopped garlic until golden. Discard the garlic.
2. In a mortar, blender, or a food processor, turn cilantro root, garlic cloves, chilies, scallions and white pepper into a paste. Mix it with ground chicken and shape into 1/2” meatballs.
3. In a large pot, bring chicken stock to a boil, add soy sauce, radish, and meatballs. Simmer for about 5 minutes, until the meatballs are cooked.
4. Add ginger, cabbage, and shrimp to the pot, simmer for about 2 minutes, until the shrimp curl and turn opaque.
5. Divide cooked rice between the soup bowls, paddle the soup, and garnish with garlic oil, chopped scallions and cilantro.
