Tom Yum Soup with Chilli Lemongrass Crab Dumplings

A good tom yum soup lives or dies on its broth, and the broth lives or dies on its aromatics. Get those two right and the rest is just folding little parcels of crab. This is a clear broth, not the cloudy creamy version you sometimes see, and I prefer it that way. Lighter on the stomach, sharper on the palate, and it lets the lemongrass and galangal actually speak.

We grow lemongrass on site here in the kitchen garden, and there’s a real difference in the aroma when you cut it fresh that morning. If you’ve only ever used the dried stuff, track down a few fresh stalks and you’ll taste why I bang on about it. Same goes for the galangal. People reach for ginger as a substitute and I understand why, but galangal has a sharper, almost piney note that ginger can’t fake. It’s worth a trip to an Asian grocer to get the real thing, and what you don’t use freezes beautifully.

The other quiet hero here is the corn. Two cobs going into the stockpot doesn’t sound like much, but corn lends the broth a gentle natural sweetness that balances the sour and the salt, and it does it without a spoon of sugar. That’s the kind of trick that makes a soup taste considered rather than just hot and tangy. We pull the cobs out at the end, so they’re working purely behind the scenes.

The dumplings are the fun bit, and honestly the bit people are most nervous about. Don’t be. They’re crab, a few aromatics and a gow gee wrapper. If your first three look like they’ve been sat on, the next nine will be fine. Nobody’s marking you. Keep a small bowl of water nearby to wet the edges if your wrappers are on the dry side, press out the air as you seal so they don’t burst, and resist the urge to overfill. A teaspoon is plenty. Cram them and they split the moment they hit the broth.

Ingredients

Soup

• 3 litres water
• 2 corn cobs
• 1 onion, halved
• 1 lemon, halved
• 4 large tomatoes, quartered
• 2 sticks lemongrass, tender inner part only, roughly chopped (use outer layers in stock if desired)
• 2cm square galangal, roughly chopped
• 2 cloves roasted garlic
• 10 kaffir lime leaves, shredded
• 6 coriander roots and stems, roughly chopped
• 1 tbs fish sauce
• 2 tbs chopped red chilli
• 2 tsp coconut nectar
• 3 tbs tamari
• 1 tbs yellow curry paste
• 1 tsp tamarind paste

To serve

• 4 shiitake mushrooms, sliced
• Coriander leaves, to garnish

Chilli and Lemongrass Dumplings

• 150 g fresh crab meat (or raw prawn meat, finely chopped)
• 1/4 tsp finely chopped red chilli
• Finely grated zest of 1 lime
• 1 coriander root, finely chopped
• 1/2 tsp finely chopped lemongrass, white part only
• 1/4 tsp finely chopped galangal
• 12 gow gee wrappers (square or round)

Method

1. To create your base stock, place the water, corn, onion, lemon, tomatoes in a stockpot or large saucepan. Bring to the boil, then reduce the heat and simmer, covered for 40 minutes.
2. In a blender, combine lemongrass, galangal, garlic, kaffir lime leaves and coriander roots. Add to stock.
3. Add the remaining soup ingredients to the stockpot and simmer for at least 20 minutes, covered.
4. While soup is simmering, place all dumpling ingredients, except gow gee wrappers in a large bowl and combine well.
5. Lay the gow gee wrappers on a cutting board or clean surface and place 1 teaspoon of the mix onto the centre of each wrapper. If using square wrappers fold over to form a triangle, then press edges firmly together to form a parcel. If using round wrappers, fold over to form a semi-circle, then press edges firmly together to form a parcel. Continue until all ingredients are used.
6. Place dumplings into the hot soup for approximately 5 minutes.
7. To serve, remove the corn, onion and lemon from the pot and add finely sliced shiitake mushrooms. Garnish with coriander leaves.

Serves 4-6 people.

A couple of things worth flagging before you start. The corn, onion and lemon aren’t there to be eaten, they’re flavour scaffolding for the stock, so don’t fuss over how they look, they come out at the end. Taste the broth before you drop the dumplings in and adjust: a touch more tamari for salt, more chilli for heat, a squeeze more tamarind if it needs that sour edge. Tom yum should hit hot, sour, salty and a whisper of sweet all at once.

Serving, make-ahead and a few swaps

The broth is the part you can get ahead on. Make it a day early, strain it, chill it overnight and the aromatics deepen rather than fade. Reheat gently and only add the dumplings when you’re ready to eat, since they go soft if they sit around in hot liquid. If you’re feeding a crowd, fold the dumplings in the afternoon, lay them on a lined tray so they don’t stick, and cover them in the fridge until the broth’s bubbling. They’ll also freeze raw on the tray, then tip into a bag once solid, and you can drop them straight into hot soup from frozen with an extra minute or two of cooking.

Crab is lovely here but prawn does the job just as well, finely chopped so it binds. Vegetarians can skip the dumplings and bulk the bowl with extra shiitake, some soft rice noodles or a handful of greens wilted in at the end. A few slices of fresh chilli and a scatter of coriander on top, and you’ve got a light, warming bowl that’s heavy on flavour rather than fat, which is the kind of cooking we lean toward in this kitchen. If you enjoy these fragrant Thai flavours, the same lemongrass-and-coconut family runs through our snapper with aromatic lemongrass coconut sauce and the golden coconut chicken curry, and the thai fish cakes make a cracking starter if you want to build a proper feed. Broths like this are an easy way to eat more vegetables without thinking about it too hard, which suits me fine.

— Dave Forsythe, Golden Door Living kitchen