Vegan Recipe: Ellie Bullens’ Tom Kha Gai With Mushrooms

Ellie Bullen’s plant-based recipes from her new cook book The Global Vegan come from all around the world. Here she shares her fragrant Tom Kha Gai soup recipe with The Carousel.

“Tom kha gai is my favourite Thai soup, as it’s absolutely bursting with zesty flavour,” says Ellie. “I learned how to make it during a cooking class in northern Thailand, where we picked all the fresh herbs from the garden and visited the local market to buy the veggies. This soup would make a great entree or light main on a cold winter’s night.”

Serves 2

Tom Kha Gai Ingredients:

250 ml (1 cup) coconut milk
3 cm piece of galangal, sliced
1 lemongrass stalk, white part only, bruised with

the flat edge of a knife
45 g oyster mushrooms, roughly torn
100 g soft tofu, cut into 2 cm cubes
1 tomato, quartered
1 tablespoon Vegan Fish Sauce (see page 275)

or soy sauce
1 teaspoon coconut sugar
1 long red chilli, sliced
4 kaffir lime leaves
1 tablespoon freshly squeezed lime juice handful of coriander leaves

Method:

Place the coconut milk, galangal and lemongrass in a saucepan and bring to the boil over medium–high heat. Boil for 1 minute, then add the mushroom, tofu, tomato, vegan fish sauce or soy sauce, coconut sugar, chilli and 125 ml

(1⁄2 cup) of water. Simmer for 5 minutes, add the kaffir lime leaves and simmer for another minute.

Remove from the heat and stir through the lime juice. Divide among bowls, scatter over a few coriander leaves and serve.

‘The Global Vegan by Ellie Bullen, Published by Plum, RRP $34.99, Photography by Ellie Bullen’