Curry lemongrass soup

We ate a curry lemongrass soup in a restaurant in Austria some years ago. We loved this soup as it is spicy, creamy and sour. It is not a tom ka soup, but a creamy Thai soup. I was lucky to receive the recipe from the chef and gave the soup my own twist.

Ingredients (4 persons)

9 yellow chilies (or about 20 small yellow chilies)
4 stems lemon grass
4 shallots
5 cloves garlic
2 cm fresh ginger
1/2 spoon coriander seeds
1/2 spoon mustard powder
1/2 spoon cinnamon
1 spoon yellow caster sugar
70 gr. Tom ka paste
3 lime leaves
little bit brown sugar (Coconut sugar)
3 tomatoes
4 table spoons Thai fishsauce
juice of 1 lime
1.3 liter Coconut milk

Yellow Curry paste

Prepare first the yellow curry paste. I make this always from scratch. It is not difficult. All ingredients are already mentioned above. On my blog is a red curry paste mentioned as well. The two curries are prepared in the same way. http://explorer4experience.com/thai-red-curry/

Cut 8 large chilies and remove the seeds from most of the chilies. If you are using small chilies use about 14-15. The more seeds you add to the paste the spicier it becomes. For the first time making this soup I recommend to use the seeds of only one chili.

Cut one stem of lemongrass in small rings, cut 4 shallots in rings and cut 4 cloves of garlic. Add these ingredients into a pounder and smash the ingredients.

Shallots, lemon grass, chilies and garlic in the pounder

Peel the ginger and add small cut fresh ginger, coriander seeds, mustard powder, cinnamon and the yellow caster sugar into the pounder and mix everything till you get a paste or till all ingredients are mixed.

After everything is mixed in the pounder I transfer everything to a mixer to make a paste. Add some olive oil to the ingredients and turn on the mixer. Of course this can also be done in the pounder, but I like the convenience of using the mixer.

Preparing the soup

Cut the tomatoes in parts, cut one clove garlic in thin slices and break / cut 3 stems of lemon grass, cut one large yellow or some (5) smaller chilies, remove the seeds.

Pull 1/2 of the yellow curry paste and the Tom ka paste in a pan and turn on the heat, very low. Stir because the pastes can burn!

Add the tomato, the lemon grass, the chili, the lime leaves, the coconut sugar and the garlic to the pastes.

All ingredients except the lime, coconut milk and fish sauce.

Stir the ingredients and increase the heat a bit if you want, but keep on stirring as the ingredients might burn as almost no oil is used (only in the paste). When the tomatoes are becoming softer and release their moisture add the lime juice and the Thai fish sauce and let it boil.

Stir and when the ingredients boil add the coconut milk.

Let it cook. When it boils reduce the heat and let it boil for 45 minutes. The soup becomes yellow.

Normally I turn off the heat after 45 minutes and let the soup rest till I need it. This means, preparing it in the afternoon and finishing it in the evening. When all the ingredients stay in the soup the soup gets more flavored.