BEST EVER Tom Kha Gai | Thai Chicken Coconut Soup

This is tom kha gai or Thai chicken coconut milk soup and this is my favorite Thai soup ever. It's so creamy, aromatic, sweet and savory with a subtle kick of spice and so easy to make. So let's go. First, let's talk aromatics. This is everything you are going to need. The most important ingredient in tom kha gai is this bad boy galangal or blue ginger. We don't need this much so I'm going to just chop off what we need for today's recipe. In Thai, this is known as kha. So this is in the dish's name so you really can't skip this. This is what galangal looks like. It's not ginger by the way and totally different in flavor. This is more of a floral, fresh, herby flavor and you can't really replace this with ginger. You don't have to peel the skin. This is fine but you can if you want to. If there are these, you know, ugly bits right here, I just like to shave them off and then slice them thin. You want to be careful here since galangal is quite a tough root. I like to kind of just twirl it about and find a soft end to cut and just slice from there. But anyway, yeah, please be careful, okay? Slice them thinly just like this. Next, lemongrass. You can just use one by the way but I'll just use two because I'm extra like that. First, you want to peel off the tough outer layer of the lemongrass and then mash it with the back of your knife or I just like to use a pestle here. We do this to release the flavor. You want to be able to see the fibers of the lemongrass quite visibly just like this and that's how you know you're done. Keep it to one side. Another very important ingredient in this, kaffir lime leaves. This is what the kaffir lime leaves look like. You want to try to hunt this down and you don't really need to prep this but I'm just showing you what it looks like. It smells amazing. Next, an onion. There is no need to slice your onion. You want to just chop it in half just like this and done. So yes, you want it into two big chunks just like this. You'll see why later on. Oh and you also want to remove the skin of your onions as well. Garlic. Again, no need to slice this but I am going to lightly mash the whole garlic with the flat side of my knife just like this and the skin is going to come off easily as well after you do this. So this is what we're after and you want to keep this smashed garlic to one side as well. Is it really a Thai dish if there's no Thai bird's eye chilies? So I have a couple here. You want to just slice off the top here and again, we're not going to be slicing this. We are just going to mash it lightly again with the flat side of my knife just like this. So you want to just kind of flatten it and bruise it just to release the chili flavor and again, we want to keep the chilies whole. We'll also be needing some cilantro or coriander here and this is for garnishing for later on but if you have a whole cilantro here just like I do with the root attached, you want to cut off the root. Make sure you clean it and do not throw away this root. We're going to be using this later on as well. No wastage, okay? And then just slice the cilantro for the garnishing later on and that's it. Proteins next or in this case, chicken. Also known as gai in Thai and therefore also a key ingredient in Tom Ka Gai. Use whatever boneless chicken you like. Today, I'm using chicken breast. You can also use boneless chicken thighs. Just cube it into bite-sized pieces just like this. If you want to marinate your chicken with some fish sauce and white pepper, you can do that as well but traditionally, it's not really done. So I'm just going to keep this recipe as simple and as quick as possible and with that, let's make the Tom Ka Gai. To our pot, add a little bit of oil and you want to let that get hot over low to medium heat. Once hot, add the sliced galangal, the bruised lemongrass, onion, the garlic, the whole chilies, as well as the coriander or cilantro root. Give all of that a quick saute in the oil until the fragrance releases. Now this step is optional. I just like to do it. If you want an oil-free soup, then you can skip this step altogether. But I like it. I think it makes the aromatics a lot more aromatic. Once fragrant, pour in chicken stock. I'm using homemade unsalted chicken stock here. You can also cheat and just use chicken stock cubes with some water but do adjust the salt since stock cubes are salted already. Anyway, give your soup a quick stir and then you want to let this come to a boil before turning down the heat and letting this simmer for 10 minutes or as long as you can let this simmer. I like to just cover the pot with a lid at this point. When you come back and you're happy with the base soup and oh my god, you can immediately smell all those herby herp herp aromatics, remove all of the aromatics. I'm just going to be using a slotted spoon here and this is why I prefer to keep the aromatics whole so that I can easily remove them from the pot without having to strain it. It's just too much effort. This is optional, you can remove everything but I just like to leave a couple of chilies in there and a lemongrass stick. It just makes for a nice color. Next, turn the heat back up to a medium and then add the cubed chicken and we are adding in the kaffir lime leaves at this stage as well. Before adding the kaffir lime leaves, make sure you tear it so that the flavor and the fragrance releases, okay? Stir that through and basically we are going to let the chicken cook at this point. Once the chicken cooks through, it should just take about five minutes or so, add the mushrooms. I have a mixture of oyster mushrooms and shiitake mushrooms here but use whatever mushrooms you like. Make sure to lower the heat right now so that it's a gentle simmer and gently pour in the coconut milk or coconut cream. So the reason why you want to keep that low heat is so that the coconut cream does not curdle. Next, we are seasoning this with some fish sauce for the salt as well as sugar. Then stir to combine until you get a nice creamy milky soup just like this. Let the soup come back up to a boil or just gently bubbling like this and your tom kha gai is all done. Give it a final taste test and add more fish sauce or sugar if you need and then turn off the heat. Add lime juice here. I like to add it in at the end so that there's no bitterness and a sprinkling of cilantro or coriander and done. This is tom kha gai. Can you see how creamy and just yummy this is? You can serve this as it is like soup but I'm Asian, okay? So I gotta have this with rice. I hope you give this easy tom kha gai a go and bye. If you love this soupy soupy recipe then you might love this next.