I have been overly tired and I have had a bit of a tickle in my throat the last few days so it was time to yank some of my hearty meat broth from the depths of the freezer and put it to work. I think the reason I am so tired is because of work so I wasn’t ready to make much effort. However I still have a ton of lemongrass and lime leaves in the fridge so I dug out a recipe I had copied down from Hot, Sour, Salty, Sweet: A Culinary Journery through SouthEast Asia. As usual I made a few changes. The biggest being substituting brown mushrooms for oyster mushrooms since that was what was available. The outcome was lovely, spicy and wholesome, I feel better already.
Since I have managed to make it into Weekend Herb Blogging two weeks in a row I might as well continue the streak and feature lemongrass. In fact it is of the most interesting things I am determined to grow in my new little garden. I figure that it is fragrant enough that the deer will ignore it and also apparently you can get a stalk you picked up from the grocery store to sprout and then just plant it, neat huh? I am determined to do this as soon as I come across some that aren’t super dried out, plus it is a perennial so once I get it going it should keep coming back. This isn’t the first time I have posted about lemongrass, I have posted how to use it here.
This week’s host of Weekend Herb Blogging is Rachel from Rachel’s Bite. I have just checked out her blog for the first time and she was just up in Vancouver! It sounds like she had a great time here and in Victoria even if she did suffer through a meal at Moxies. I also found her experience with King’s crab legs amusing (she discovered that you can’t actually eat them fresh) since I personally don’t find them to be anything special and would way rather have Dungeness crab then King crab any day – plus you can get them very fresh.
4C homemade chicken or light meat broth
2 stalks lemongrass, trimmed and smashed flat
3 lime leaves
1 dried red thai chile
a dozen brown mushrooms, cleaned and coarsely chopped
200g raw shrimp, deveined and peeled
1/2 lime, juiced
2-3T Thai fish sauce
1. Put broth and lemongrass in a medium pot and bring to a boil. Add the lime leaves and chile and bring back to a boil, allow to cook for 3 minutes. Add the mushrooms and bring back to a boil cooking for 1 minute. Then add the shrimp cook for 1-2 minutes or until the shrimp have turned pink.
2. Remove from heat and stir in the lime juice and the fish sauce.
3. Taste and adjust as necessary.
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
Katerina, I know just how you feel when you feel a cold or illness coming on…a spicy Asian soup hits the spot! I’m working on a copycat recipe of a Spicy Udon soup at a local eatery. Your recipe has shed some light for me…thanks!
You know what recipe you should check out. Rachael Ray’s soba bowl recipe, her spices are just right for a copy cat recipe, I was impressed. I keep meaning to make it and post about it… but there are only so many recipes
http://www.rachaelrayshow.com/?q=recipes/soba-bowl
I’m finally getting caught up on reading these posts (after being out of town.) I just love this type of soup but I’ve never made it myself. It’s one of my favorite Thai dishes. Very impressed that you’re growing lemongrass. Wonder if it would grow here?
This looks absolutely delicious! Your blog is beautiful.