One of my recipe-friends returned from Thailand where she had been investigating cooking techniques and ingredients. She brought me some galangal which I requested but she lamented the fact that she couldn't bring some other ingredients, such as lemon grass and other fresh herbs, as they would be spoiled by the time she got them home. I said it shouldn't stop her trying out the ideas she picked up in Thailand and we got on to a discussion about what constitutes a 'Thai dish'. Her definition was much stricter than mine. She felt that if you didn't have all the ingredients, then your dish wouldn't be the real thing. It might taste very good she said, but how would you know that the ingredient you left out wasn't the vital, defining one for that particular dish.
My argument was that as long as the dish tasted good then I wouldn't worry. Not unless I was serving it up to a bunch of Thai food experts, and I can't imagine a team of them turning up at the door and saying, 'Right Macbean, knock us up a nice vegetarian green curry, quick-style'. I think our difference of opinion comes from the fact that I cook without meat, therefore I have to adapt almost every recipe I see. Take, for example, vegetarian Mexican chilli, vegetarian Scotch broth or vegetarian French onion soup. I think these dishes are recognisable for what they are, but they are hardly 'authentic'. My granny would have scoffed at Scotch broth without a big greasy chunk of flank mutton floating in it. The same attitude has to be taken with Thai food as even dishes that appear to be vegetarian at first glance invariably contain fish sauce or shrimp paste.
So this recipe is one of the products of our discussion and collaboration. We put our heads together - her notes made on her recent trip, my hazy memories of a visit several years earlier and our combined culinary skills. My recipes for fried noodles with tofu and young radishes, courgette and coconut curry and pumpkin and coconut pudding are other spin-offs from the same session.
I used field blewit mushrooms for this soup because they were in season and I prefer to use wild mushrooms if I can get them. Almost any kind of mushroom would do. The quantities given here will do four people.
Ingredients
600g mushrooms
3 cups coconut milk
Juice from one and a half to two lemons
A bunch of green coriander
A half-teaspoon of crushed red chilli
2 vegetable stock cubes
About I.3 litres of water
Oil
Salt
Chop the mushrooms and fry for five minutes or until most of
the water has evaporated from them. While they are frying, Put the coconut milk
and water in a pot and heat. When it is boiling add the stock cubes, chilli
and fried mushrooms. Simmer for ten or fifteen minutes, check to see if you
need to add a little salt, then switch off the heat. Add the lemon juice and
chopped coriander and serve.
more soup recipes
more mushroom recipes
more coconut recipes