Cooked with fresh lemongrass, kaffir lime leaves, galangal, lime juice, fish sauce and crushed red chilies, shrimp tom yum is Thailand in a bowl.
Traditional shrimp tom yum uses unshelled shrimps, heads attached, which when simmered make a richly flavored broth. You may use frozen shelled shrimps AND shrimp broth without losing flavor.
Juice from regular limes is traditional for tom yum, but we have a kaffir lime tree and we use the juice from its fruit. If lime juice isn’t available, go ahead and use lemon or kalamansi juice.
Shrimp Tom Yum
Recipe byMany Western versions of tom yum substitute ginger for galangal, but in Asian cooking, they are not interchangeable. Galangal and ginger are often cooked together but, when a recipe calls for galangal only, ginger is not a viable alternative.
Ingredients
- 6 cups shrimp broth
- 3 slices galangal dried is fine
- 2 whole stalks lemongrass tied into a bundle
- 2 shallots peeled and halved
- 2 pairs kaffir lime leaves center ribs removed and discarded
- 2 bird's eye chilies slit
- 2 tomatoes cut into wedges
- 24 shelled shrimps
- fish sauce
- lime juice
- torn cilantro to garnish
Instructions
- Pour the broth into a pot and bring to the boil.
- Drop the galangal slices, lemongrass, kaffir lime leaves, chilies and tomatoes into the broth. Lower the heat. Cover and simmer for 10 minutes.
- Add the shrimps to the broth.
- If the broth is unseasoned or underseasoned, add fish sauce.
- Cover the pot once more and simmer for five minutes, or just long enough to cook the shrimps but without overcooking them.
- Taste the broth. Add more fish sauce, if needed.
- Drizzle in the lime juice, a tablespoonful at a time, tasting and adding as you go along until a good balance of salty and sour is achieved.
- Ladle your hot and sour shrimp tom yum into bowls, sprinkle with cilantro and serve immediately.
Notes
Updated from a recipe originally published in 04/10/2020
