Kind of Tom Kha Chicken

Many of you already know that I'm a creature of habit, to the extent that at some restaurants, I will only order one thing, deviation from that one thing always leads to disappointment. My beloved Busaba Eathai is so beloved by me because of their Tom Kha Chicken, and with a bit of time on my hands, I tried to recreate it.

Tom Kha Gai is already one of my favourite things in the world, and Busaba adds to it by making it into a full meal by adding glass noodles and spinach, with a chargrilled chicken thigh. I'm pretty sure it is completely unauthentic, and Thai people really should stop reading here before I offend anyone, but it is complete comfort food in a bowl. It is actually not a very popular dish it seems, I hardly ever see other people order it, but it is definitely in the shortlist for my death row meal.

Kind of Tom Kha Chicken (serves 2, probably)

2 cans coconut milk (I used reduced fat to try and be good)
Thumb-sized piece of galangal
2 stalks lemongrass
6 kaffir lime leaves
5 small red Thai chillis
2 chicken thighs, with skin
4 tablespoons fish sauce
2 tablespoons sugar
Juice of half a lime
Handful of rice noodles per person, previously soaked
Handful of baby spinach leaves

1. Prepare the chicken. I've found that it is impossible to buy boned out chicken thighs which still have their skins on, and you really have to have the skin for this recipe. Boning out is a bit fiddly, but quite therapeutic. And I found on this occasion that my kitchen scissors were particularly helpful. Once boned out, cover each thigh with cling film and bash it flat with the base of your hand.


2. Prepare the spices. Slice the galangal, cut the lemongrass into inch long strips and bash to release the lemony oils. Rip the lime leaves in half. Leave the chillies as they are, or halve them if you want more heat - but this soup is more about aromatics than heat for me.


3. Cook the chicken. I used my Le Creuset griddle pan to try and get some of the barbeque burnt flavour into the chicken, one of the things I love about the Busaba dish. Over a medium heat, you should be able to cook the chicken through without really burning the meat.


4. In a pan, pour in one can of the coconut milk, and then add in all the galangal, lemongrass, lime leaves and chillis. Heat until boiling.


5. Once it's at the boil, add the chicken, fish sauce, and sugar, and simmer for 5 mins to infuse the flavours, before adding the second tin of coconut milk and about half a tin of water
6. Add in the rice noodles, add in the lime juice, and cook until noodles are soft. Stir in a handful of spinach at the last minute. Et voila!

I was very proud of this - the flavours are almost there vs. the Busaba original, except this version was very very rich / thick, even though I'd already substituted with light coconut milk.

Improvements for next time:

• More lime juice
• Use palm sugar instead of golden caster sugar - I'd actually bought some last weekend but my parents managed to run off with it!!
• Maybe only one tin of coconut milk, and the rest water / light fish stock
• Add a shitake mushroom with a cross on its bottom to look even more like Busaba's
• This is probably really blasphemous, but to put the spices in a kind of bouquet garni so that you don't get little bits of lemongrass amongst your noodles. I actually reused the soup base for another handful of noodles the next day and strained out the spices. I told you Thai people should've stopped reading