Foodie Files:Tom Kha Gai (Coconut Chicken & Mushroom Soup)

Tom who/what now? Tom Kha Gai (also known as Tom Kha Kai) is a delightful coconut chicken and mushroom soup that is part of Thai and Lao cuisine. It literally translates to ‘chicken galangal soup’. I prefer to call it a culinary aphrodisiac.

Traditionally it is served with the kaffir lime leaves, galangal and lemon grass stalks kept intact but not eaten. Trust me on this, biting into lemon grass will please no one except maybe cows. You have been warned.

If you cannot find galangal and kaffir lime leaves, the suitable alternatives would be to use fresh ginger and lime zest. You could also swap the palm sugar for brown sugar.

Usually you would keep the ginger whole but I love the heat so I actually finely diced mine and threw it in. So shall we begin?

For a serving of 4 – 5 lucky folks, you will need:
– Coconut milk (2 x 400ml tins)
– Fresh ginger (or galangal)
– 4 chicken breasts (skinless)
– Chicken stock
– Button and/or oyster mushrooms
– 1 stalk of lemon grass
– Lime zest (or 3 kaffir lime leaves)
– 2tbsp of lime juice
– 1/2 cup of Thai fish sauce
– 3 tbsp of brown sugar (or palm sugar)
– 8 red chillies
– Salt
– Black pepper
– 800ml of water


1) Chop the chicken into bite size pieces and boil till cooked through in chicken stock (approx 15-20 minutes)

2) Chop your mushrooms. Peel and finely dice your ginger and red chillies

3) Grate your lime zest and extract the juice (4 or 5 limes is fine) and cut the lemon grass in half

4) Pour the coconut milk into a pot on medium heat and add your chillies, ginger, lime zest and juice, water, lemon grass, Thai fish sauce and sugar and bring to a boil then simmer for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally

5) Add your chicken along with some of the stock liquid and season with black pepper and salt according to your taste buds. Cook on low heat for another 2 minutes

Voila! Plate up and garnish with an option of fresh parsley or spring onions and more chilli if you are on the brave side.

Now some of you know  I’m all about sweet; kick; zing. That’s exactly what you get with this recipe. Simple in preparation; complex myriad of flavourful delight.

Good luck sharing this one. Quite frankly, I’d rather (happily) be selfish.

Chef Jeff