Description
A popular Thai street food, tom yum noodle soup takes the basil broth and amp it up with chilies, lime juice, ground pork, and roasted peanuts. It's super common in Thailand, but a rare find in Thai restaurants overseas. Thanksfull, it's super easy to make at home!
Ingredients
For Basic Pork Stock:
- 2 lb pork bones (or substitute chicken bones)
- 5 cloves garlic, crushed
- 5 cilantro roots, smashed to bruise, or 10 cilantro stems,
- ½ tsp white peppercorns, cracked or ground
- top half of 2 lemongrass, smashed until broken and cut into 2-inch pieces
For Ground Pork:
- 2 Tbsp water
- 200 g ground pork (or substitute ground chicken)
- 1 tsp fish sauce
For Fried Garlic
- 5 cloves garlic, chopped
- 3-4 Tbsp vegetable oil
Assembly:
*I've given amounts of seasoning per bowl also so it is easier for you to scale up and down, and also because traditionally the bowl is seasoned one by one as shown in the video!
- 2 Tbsp + 2 tsp sugar (2 tsp per bowl)
- 2 Tbsp + 2 tsp fish sauce (2 tsp per bowl)
- 4 Tbsp lime juice (1 Tbsp per bowl)
- 1/2 cup ground roasted peanuts (2 Tbsp per bowl)
- Roasted chili flakes or regular chili flakes, to taste (see note 1)
- 3 cups (720 ml) pork stock (6oz/180 ml per bowl)
- 100g Asian-style fish cakes, thinly sliced (store bought)
- 160 g fresh egg noodles (thin) or another noodle of your choice (see note 2)
- 1 1/2 cups bean sprouts
- 1/2 cup chopped cilantro
- Chili vinegar (optional, see note 3)
Instructions
Wash bones in cold water, then add to a large stock pot. Cover with about 3 L of cold water and bring to a simmer; let simmer for about 45-60 mins (do not let boil). Skim off the scum that has floated to the top using a fine mesh skimmer or a ladle, then add garlic, cilantro roots, peppercorns, lemongrass. Simmer for 1 more hour then keep hot until ready to use.
Add water to a small pot, then bring to a boil over medium high heat. Add ground pork and fish sauce and cook, stirring constantly to break up big chunks, until the pork is fully cooked.
Add garlic to a small pot and add just enough vegetable oil to barely cover. Fry over medium low heat until the garlic is golden brown. Remove from heat and immediately transfer into a bowl to stop it from cooking further. (Note: For soups, you can keep the garlic in the oil, but if you want to keep the garlic crispy for sprinkling on other dishes, drain the garlic from the oil).
Blanch bean sprouts and fish cakes in boiling water for about 7-10 seconds just to heat them up, then remove from the water (keeping the water) and divide into serving bowls.
Cook noodles in the boiling water until it's just slightly underdone, timing will vary with different types of noodles so you have to taste for doneness. Drain and divide noodles between serving bowls.
To each bowl, add 2 heaping tablespoons of the cooked ground pork.
In a medium pot, add the pork stock and heat it just until it is simmering gently (do not let it boil or it will reduce and you won't have enough broth). Turn off the heat and add the sugar, fish sauce, lime juice, ground peanuts, and chili flakes; stir to dissolve the sugar and ladle broth over the noodles, starting with ¾ cup of broth per bowl, then divide the remaining broth evenly.
Top each bowl with cilantro and fried garlic & garlic oil; serve immediately. After tasting, feel free to adjust the flavour with chili vinegar, more fish sauce, lime juice, sugar or chili flakes!
Notes
- If making your own roasted chili flakes, toast some spicy dried chilies (Thai or arbol) in a dry skillet for a few minutes until charred spots form. Grind in a coffee grinder into small flakes.
- Noodles: I recommend choosing thin noodles for this soup. The given weight is for fresh egg noodles only; if you use another kind of noodles, the weight will be different.
- Chili vinegar is an optional condiment, but it is always served with noodle soups in Thailand. To make, simply chop some Thai chilies and cover with white vinegar and let sit for 15 minutes to infuse before using.