Tag: Best Dinners

Best Tasting Thai Coconut Soup

Making the best tasting Thai Coconut Soup is within reach with this delicious Tom Kha recipe. Use the essential ingredients plus your favorite protein, like chicken, shrimp, or tofu and this dish will taste authentic, with complex, memorable flavors, like it came out of a restaurant kitchen.

Tom Kha Gai (the chicken version) was the first Thai food I ever had. This creamy dish is rich, but somehow light at the same time, and is spiked with more than just a hint of lime. Its taste blew me away. I’m forever a fan of Thai food simply because of this dish.

Best Tasting Thai Coconut Soup Close Up

What’s In it?

The soup’s essential ingredients are coconut milk, kaffir lime leaves, lemongrass, Asian ginger root (galangal), and fish sauce. I use chicken broth and will often vary the vegetables, or add to them. Red bell peppers, peas and edamame work well as additions.

I’ve tweaked this recipe over the past decade and compared it to many restaurants here in the states and in Thailand. This best tasting Thai coconut soup is my “go to” version now and I’m excited to share it with you here. I often make it with different types of mushrooms as their unique texture as you chew is unmistakable. And I almost always serve it over white or brown rice. I  like it because it makes a big batch.

The other great thing about this dish? The flavors meld and blossom the longer it sits, so it works great to make ahead of time, or have as leftovers.

Best Tasting Thai Coconut Soup Overhead

Find Your New Favorite Asian Grocery Store

I’m in Minneapolis. My favorite Asian grocery store is United Noodle. That’s where I always get this dish’s essential ingredients. If you haven’t been, be sure to check them out. Or find your own favorite Asian grocery store. I can’t recall what I did the first times I tried to make this dish at home. They were far from blue ribbon status. Maybe because I used water, versus chicken broth? Ginger vs. galangal? Who knows?! It wasn’t until I used the kaffir lime leaves, lemongrass, and galangal, altogether, that the dish truly tasted like it came out of a Thai restaurant kitchen. Be sure to use the essential ingredients for an authentic taste.

Thai Soup Essential Ingredients

Change It Up

You can easily make this soup vegetarian by using mushroom or vegetable broth versus chicken broth, tofu versus chicken as the protein, and an alternate to fish sauce, such as soy sauce. Changing up the heat level is easy too, because you can just adjust the amount of Thai chilies or paste you use.

The garnishes of red chili oil, cilantro, and fresh lime not only give the soup pops of color, but they also add another dimension of deliciousness to it.

Make it soon and enjoy! If you want another good chicken dish, be sure to check out my Chicken Satay recipe.

Cyndi

Closeup Bowl-Thai Coconut Soup

Classic Fish & Seafood Ceviche

Classic Fish & Seafood Ceviche is one of the tastiest, freshest and healthiest meals you’ll ever experience. If you love citrus, seafood, and fish, this dish should be on your menu.  There are many ways to make ceviche. With this version, you start with sushi-grade white fish and seafood. You add lime, red onion, avocadoes, and cilantro. Salt jacks up the flavor while jalapenos – or other hot peppers – bring on the warmth. My favorite fish types for ceviche are cobia, snapper, or halibut. However, almost any other type of fish works also. Find your favorite by experimenting. For the seafood part, scallops and shrimp are my go-to choices.

Classic Fish & Seafood Ceviche

You need sushi-grade fish for it’s freshness. While you are essentially “cooking” the fish in lime juice, it’s always best to start with fish you could eat raw, like you would sushi. In Minneapolis, Minnesota, Coastal Seafoods is a lot of people’s favorite source, mine included. They’ll fillet the fish for you, if requested, and of course make recommendations on what fish to pick too.

This classic fish & seafood ceviche recipe has mainly traditional ingredients. It’s almost identical to the first ceviche I ever had. All the flavors and textures perfectly combine. These are the makings of a real deal batch of ceviche.

Classic Fish & Seafood Ceviche

 

This is a perfect make-ahead dish.  Once you mix everything together, you just refrigerate the mixture until the fish and/or seafood is no longer raw and looks opaque, roughly 3-4 hours.

Enjoy,

Cyndi