I made Thai Hot and Sour Prawn Soup last night. If I had to buy the following ingredients that came out of my gardens it would have cost an extra $19: garlic, shallots, lime, kaffir lime leaves, galangal, tomato, chilli, lemongrass, and coriander. Not a bad saving considering all I had to do was plant the products and watch them grow.
If you combine that sort of saving once or twice a week with the usual suspects for regular meals such as tomatoes, lettuce, shallots, silverbeet, snow peas, carrots, potatoes and garlic a Watersaver Garden can put a big dent in the grocery bill. And of course nothing tastes better than home grown product despite what the so-called ‘Fresh Food People’ say.
The recipe for this delicious meal (I served it with crusty bread) is from Sompon Nabnian’s Chaing Mai Cooking School. If you are heading to Thailand I highly recommend you stay a couple of nights at Sompon’s house, he is a lovely guy and a great host.
For two as a main:
700g peeled deveined prawns (keep shells& heads)
3 cups water
6 crushed cloves garlic
6 sliced shallots
2 stalks lemongrass, lower 1/3 cut into one inch pieces
10 thin slices of galangal
2 cups of straw mushrooms
2 medium tomatoes each cut into eight pieces
6 red chillies (according to taste)
3 tbsp fish sauce
5 kaffir lime leaves in pieces, stem removed
2 tbsp lime juice
½ cup coriander for garnish
Cover the heads/shells with water and bring to the boil.
Strain and bring the liquid back to the boil.
Add garlic, shallots, lemongrass, galangal, and bring back to boil.
Add mushrooms, tomatoes, nad bring back to boil.
Add chillies, fish sauce, kaffir lime leaves and simmer gently for two minutes.
Add the prawns and keep just on the boil for a bit of a minute. (best to test one, after all you are doing the cooking)
Turn of the heat and add the lime juice.
Garnish with plenty of coriander.
Ready to go
Beautiful