Name: Thai Chicken and Coconut Soup (Gai Tom Ka)
Yield: Makes 6 First-Course Servings
Cuisine: United States
Ingredients: 6⅛-inch-thick slices of galangal or 2⅛-inch-thick slices of fresh ginger; ½ cup fresh lemon or lime juice; ¼ cup Thai fish sauce or more to taste; 2 tablespoons finely chopped cilantro leaves; salt; 1-½ cups coconut milk; 2 skinless and boneless chicken breasts, cut into 1- by l/4-inch strips; 2 red Thai chilies or 3 Jalapeño chilies, seeds removed, finely chopped; 3 cups chicken broth; a 3-inch length of lemongrass, finely chopped, or zest of ½ lemon, cut into fine julienne; 4 kaffir lime leaves, cut into thin strands

Preparation info

Makes
6
First-Course Servings

Difficulty
Easy

Appears in

Splendid Soups

By James Peterson

Published 2000

About

Thai restaurants have become such a fixture in American cities that it’s hard to imagine that until about 10 years ago most Americans had never tasted Thai food. This soup, along with the hot and sour shrimp soup, is one of my favorite dishes in the Thai repertoire.

The only disadvantage of making Thai soups is that some of the ingredients are too exotic to be found at the local supermarket. Fortunately there are substitutes for many of the ingredi