Tom Yum Soup

I was told: Take out a cookbook and look at it. I did. I even put it on the countertop. After 4 days it still has not produced food for me. I know, how crazy is that! It even says “Simple Thai Food” right on the cover. I was not expecting great Thai food. I do not need fancy Thai food, but the cookbook has failed at creating even simple Thai food for me to eat. I will be putting it back on the shelf and pulling out another to see it if works better. 

In the meantime, today’s experiment is tom yum soup. 

I am really not sure if I have anything that is supposed to go into tom yum soup. In fact, I know that I do not. What I do have however is a juice box that says Tom Yum soup on it. Soup juice. This is, rare and hard to find. I’m assuming it needs to be heated up. Use only half of the box so you can make more later. This will prove to be unwise. 

I’m not sure if garlic goes into tom yum soup but as far as I’m concerned everything starts with garlic. Well, maybe frosted flakes… not that I ever eat those! 

The look through the fridge finds some snap peas – they go into every Asian dish. I have some leftover egg noodles from making faux Pho, sorry I didn’t post that one, it was the first thing I tried to cook. I think my friend ate it only to be polite and supportive of my educational endeavor.  

On further inspection: I have rice cake balls in the freezer!  They are tiny balls made of rice flour. They’re delicious and you can put them in soup or you can use them like gnocchi, they’re really good.  

I have cracked a beer so we know from past blogs that we’re getting ready to cook. I expect that it will be spilled, you know within 10 minutes.

I have a lime because I know lime goes into every Thai food dish just not sure when. I have scallions because I know they go on every Thai dish. I have eaten a lot of Thai food in my life. At restaurants, with actual Thai people cooking. This is not going to be good at all, is it? 

I have peeled garlic a hundred million times, When I lived with a large group of Chinese in San Diego that’s all I was allowed to do in the kitchen: peel the garlic. I peeled heads and heads and heads and heads of garlic, then a few more heads of garlic. Every day smashing them on the cutting board and scooping them up into a pile for someone else to make magic food from it. If you think Italians eat a lot of garlic let me tell you, they have nothing on the Chinese when it comes to a contest of how much garlic can you put in one dish. I’m just doing a few cloves as this is Thai not Chinese, so I’m assuming that five large cloves will be enough to make the soup taste good. Smash and remove that papery skin. 

The Chinese I lived with quickly learned that I have no idea what a knife does except that I usually used it to cut myself, often drawing blood. These friends were the first of many in my life that decided  I should not be allowed to use a knife. I have a bit of a history with the blades of steel, ceramics, and other sharp objects.  

In the last few years, occasionally, really carefully, I’ve been using a knife for actual food. In the last few weeks since I moved here and started fending for my own nutritional input, I have only drawn blood 4 times. I am doing so very good. 🙂  

As I’m starting this cooking stuff I have fallen in love with this wonderful gadget called the garlic crusher thingy. It is very useful for mushing and slicing garlic. Guess that is why it is so appropriately named. 

Now, luckily since I have not actually turned on the stove yet (I am getting smarter). I have the ability to go save my bird as she screamed because a hawk flew by. Everyone should comfort their macaw when a hawk goes by their window because it is very scary for them.

Sorry, back to garlic. Anyways, I have this garlic crusher thingy which means I don’t have to chop them up with a knife because by now we all understand that it might, most likely lead to bad things. Blood belongs in the body, not on the cutting board.

Pea pods. You must eat one to make sure, testing for science. It was a little bitter. I don’t mind bitterness so I think they were very delicious, okay so I ate a few. Some of them are a bit yellow because I think they’re old but anyways, I’m guessing that I should wash them. I also cut off the little ends of each of them. I don’t think I’ve eaten them in dishes. I am actually going to cut them in half to make it easier to eat… see more smartness.  I wonder how many should go in there?

Now I really like rice balls so I’m putting a bunch in there because yum.  They seem to still be frozen. I don’t understand, you’ve been out of the freezer for like nearly ten minutes and a hawk. Why are you still frozen you little balls?

Don’t forget to put the bag of rice balls back in the freezer when you are done with them. They get kind of mushy if you leave them out on the counter for an hour, just saying.  

Repeating the words “don’t cut your finger off” slice the top and bottom off of the little tiny onions scallions.  I guess you take the dead skin off the top layer of them I hope they’re good underneath. I slice them into nice little round wheels just like the restaurant does, to go on top of the soup. “Don’t cut your fingers, don’t cut your fingers…. SCORE! 

Since it is always good to clean up as you go please remember that you have to take an extra large step to get over the dog who is sound to sleep in the middle of the floor. Why he is totally unaware that he is between you and the garbage can or anywhere else you want to go is a question for the ages.  

Pro-tip: Put the scallion rounds into the bowl you’re going to use for the soup. That way when you add the soup they will float to the top…such a smart bear. 

“Don’t spill your beer, don’t spill your beer…” 

Wonder about if you should put the kimchi directly into this tom yum soup or if you should keep it on the side and eat it at the table. Realize that it is not really a good call to mix these two and that I am just trying to find anything to put into the Tom Yum at this point just choose to make it a side dish.

Pro Tip: Turn the burner on, it makes soup warm faster.

On the cutting board cut your lime into quarters, well actually, cut it in half and then cut one part of it into quarters because you really don’t need that much for one bowl of soup.  Keep them to the side but not in the bowl with your onions.

Wash your knife, cutting board, and your garlic musher. Put the rest of the lime in a bag in the fridge. Happily learn that the new garlic smasher has this cute little thing inside of it that makes it easier to clean. 

I know that the soup should now be warm. I’m not really sure how to find out if soup is hot or not. I guess I’ll just stick my finger into it. Oh I know, maybe a spoon. It is not really hot soup at all. It is rather garlicky, realize that it might be a bit too strong and add some water to thin it out. Win! It will make more soup too and give me room for the noodles which are the best part I think. 

I can only use one bundle of noodles because there wouldn’t be enough room for both of them but that means I have noodles for the other half a box of soup juice. Noodles don’t really go into tom yum, do they? Oh well. The soup is still not really getting hot I guess it was just warm from being in the box. Move the pot to the correct burner, you know, the one that is actually on. Let it actually start cooking this time. 

Eat a red vine while you’re taking things back to the closet of shelving. While you are there you might as well get the dog a treat. DO NOT mix up your hands at this point. 

As the soup gets hot add your noodles. These are egg noodles, I love egg noodles, long and stringy, you get them at the Super G. Put them into your soup and stir it around and let those noodles get warm. I’ve learned you do not want to leave these in your soup overnight or really no more than 10 minutes. Eat them right away. 

Squeeze one-quarter of lime into the soup. Eat the rest of the lime before tossing the rind, because nom! Drink some beer. Oh dear, an IPA is a really bad choice as a lime chaser.

Stir the soup one more time it is looking good.  

Shit, shit, shit… the balls!  
Oh my gosh, I can’t believe I forgot the rice balls. Now panicking and nervous. Fear overcomes me; settle it with a large swig of beer. Start coughing put it down on the counter, right on that edge of the sink. Get a towel and wipe up the spilled beer, it was bound to happen. Maybe beer should be outlawed in the kitchen. Wine might be better. The balls!

I try to run them under the water and see if they get less Frozen. Nope, wet, frozen rice balls. Maybe I could put them in the microwave? That will probably work – in they go. Out they come. Add water so they are like boiling. Do rice balls boil in the microwave? After a minute, then another 30 seconds rice balls are saved and hot. Strain them into the sink. Don’t put the balls into the sink, use the strainer. 

Now it is time you are a soup Superwoman. Pour your soup into the bowl with onions. Realize that your soup bowl is way too small for all that soup, noodles, and balls. Quickly dump it back into the pan. Get yourself a glass mixing bowl. It is important to remember to move the little Lazy Susan thing in that corner cupboard around to the right spot before closing the door. 

Pour everything into the larger bowl. Pick up your remaining beer and clean up the soup mess that spilled all over the place when it didn’t fit into the smaller bowl. 

Squeeze that last bit of lime over it with your hand. You’ve already used two extra bowls and a strainer so you just don’t want to do anything more.

Take everything to the table and try to consume – oh shit, did we turn off the stove? Get up and look why is it that you always think about these things after you sat down?
Oh shit, get up and get that fork, sit down and prepare to try your food. 
Oh shit, get up you forgot to get your napkin. Sit back down and look at your bowl of food and hope that it is still warm. 

Stir it up and spoon up the rice balls first because that’s what you really wanted. Put those balls in your mouth. Get your mind out of the gutter, this is my cooking story. Rice balls are soft, chewy, and warm…rice balls are the best. 

Stir it around and try some broth, it’s not bad, but it’s not good either, it’s also a little garlicky. Good for Chinese food maybe not so much for Thai food. Note to self: not as much garlic when making Thai food. Yet, all in all, it is edible. The only flavor seems to be garlic but it is edible.

Supplement the flavor with something that can take garlic like kimchi.
Open the jar and stick that fork into it and take a bit bite of delicious Kimchi. Suddenly remember that this one was homemade and the friend said eat it within a week and the date on it might be important. Not to mention that it moved with you. Oh shit, throw the kimchi out, come back to the table. Start assuming that it won’t make you too sick because, well it’s preserved, kind of, anyways. Go back to eating the rest of your soup. Note proudly that if you did have a sniffle or sneeze this morning you are not sick now. 

You have made an edible soup. Perhaps next time I can work on tasty soup or even a soup that tastes like something more than garlic. Meanwhile, allow your soup to get cold because you got distracted by the birds at the bird feeders. Grab the bird book and look through the entire sections of brown birds, gray birds, black/white birds. Try every page to figure out what they are and have no luck at all. They might be a chickadee, sparrow, a junco, a house wren, or could be a Carolina wren who knows. I hope they come back because I never did identify them. Drink the rest of the cold soup. I am not starving to death. Clean up. 

Was the rest of the box of soup juice supposed to go back on the shelf in the closet or in the fridge? I wonder if that matters?

Note to top it all off: 
The birds came back and I managed to find them in the book. The Dark-Eyed Junco, the great book told me including this awesome sentence about them. “Rarely confused with any other bird.”