Getting A Hang of Tom Yam Soup

The man and I have been cooking pots of clear prawn tom yam soup (ต้มยำกุ้งน้ำใส) for a while now. We use the recipe from Amita Cooking School. Contrary to what we initially thought, boiling up a pot of tom yam soup isn't difficult. Even I will attest to it. Hahahah. It's just the prep that's a tad tedious.

The man has also discovered that he likes de-veining prawns with a toothpick. I've no idea why. *shrug* Another one of those mysteries. He doesn't like using a knife. It's baffling that he rather handles the prawns twice (to de-shell first) instead of just once with a knife slicing through the shell and in a tiny twist, de-shell and de-vein at the same time. Armed with toothpicks, after loads of practice, the man does it really fast now. We use about 24 - 30 prawns for each pot, serving 12 persons, with enough for a refill of soup. Well, that's the capacity of our biggest soup pot anyway.

Last weekend we boiled up another pot of tom yam soup for dinner with the friends. It seemed to have gone down well. The huge pot of soup was finished! After like eight tries, we finally achieved a satisfactory balance of fish sauce, prawns, lime juice, galangal and chillies. Mmmm. We like the soup clear and not dotted red. The intensity of red color has no bearing on the level of chilli-spiciness. Heh. We try to moderate the chilli padi in the soup. It's not necessary to kill everyone's tastebuds with it. Guests could choose to add that in later to the desired level of spiciness in their own bowls.

Every secret is in the stock.
Chicken bones, prawn heads and shells. Kinda stinky on the boil.