Name: Thai-Style Hot and Sour Shrimp Soup
Yield: Makes 6 First-Course Servings
Ingredients: ¼ cup fresh lime juice; 18 small cultivated mushrooms, quartered, button mushrooms, or canned straw mushrooms, drained; 18 large shrimp, about 1 pound, peeled and deveined; 3 garlic cloves, finely chopped; 2 shallots, finely chopped; 1 teaspoon sugar; 3 kaffir lime leaves, broken into quarters, or a 1-inch strip of lime zest blanched in boiling water for 2 minutes; 3 Thai red chilies or 4 Jalapeño chilies, seeded and chopped, or Tabasco sauce to taste; a 3-inch length of lemongrass or scallion, finely chopped; ¼ cup Thai fish sauce; 4 cups chicken broth; 2 tablespoons safflower oil

Preparation info

Makes
6
First-Course Servings

Difficulty
Easy

Appears in

Splendid Soups

By James Peterson

Published 2000

About

This irresistible soup is easy and fun to make because the basic ingredients are so flavorful that they seem to cover all the major tastes—sweet, sour, and hot—and you need only a little broth to round it out and give it body. Perhaps it is this combination of robust flavors served in a light soup that has made Thai cooking so popular.

For the soup to be authentic, you’ll need a few unusual ingredients such as lemongrass and fish sauce (nam pla), but the joy of this soup is t