TOM YUM GOONG (ต้มยำกุ้ง)
Hi guys.. welcome back to my post.. As you seen before on my another Famous food’s posted. I’d like to found more information about the food and share it to you guys. Before I shared it to you, I asked myself first about the food. There so many questions appeared in my mind about the food. What is this? What is it taste like? How is it discovered? Do people like it? How to make it? I tried my best to found all the questions in my head and shared it all to you guys..
Now I’ll share about Tom Yum soup from Thailand. It is one of famous food spread all around the world. You may know this food, or maybe you’ve already ate this before. Tom Yum isn’t strange for foreign people outside Thailand. I think is one of the best soups in the world. And if you never tried this before, you must try it. Why? Because the flavors is so fascinated. The taste of lemongrass, galangal, kaffir lime leaves, fresh Thai chilies, and fresh lime juice, that all combine to create a healthy and soothing broth with balance taste that will light up your taste buds.
WHAT IS TOM YUM?
One of the most famous of all Thai foods, and what I think is one the best soups in the world, is Thai tom yum goong (ต้มยำกุ้ง). What I love most about tom yum goong (ต้มยำกุ้ง) is the flavors of lemongrass, galangal, kaffir lime leaves, fresh Thai chilies, and fresh lime juice, that all combine to create a healthy and soothing broth that will light up your taste buds.
In addition to a tasty broth topped with fresh fragrant greens, tom yum soup also generally includes proteins. While some Thai restaurants in the West offer this soup with tofu, this is not a traditional way of serving the dish. Rather, the common proteins added to tom yum broth are chicken, shrimp or prawns, fish, or a mix of seafood. Depending on which type of protein is added to the soup, the name of the dish is modified. The key below will teach you to distinguish between the different kinds of the soup:
Tom yum gai: A soup with chicken
Tom yum goong: A soup with prawns or shrimp
Tom yum pla: A soup with fish
Tom yum talay/po taek: A soup with mixed seafood.
Tom yum khon: A less popular version of the soup in which coconut milk is added to the broth
Some food manufacturers offer a tom yum paste that is made of the basic ingredients in the soup. This paste can be reconstituted into a broth. Traditionally, however, the soup is meant to be made with mostly fresh ingredients. While the paste may offer nice flavor, it may not be exactly like that of the traditional soup.
HISTORY OF TOM YUM
I searched for the history of Tom Yum and came up empty-handed – in my experience, this is almost always the mark of a very ancient dish, one that preceded written recipes and has become such a part of the culture it does not need further explanation.
According to Wiens, “There’s little information about the history of Tom Yum, but many say that it’s a central Thai soup that developed due to an abundance of freshwater shrimp. Boiled in water as a soup, the shrimp gave the broth a real fishy flavor, so cooks started experimenting by adding local Thai herbs into the boiling water to balance the fishy flavor. The trio of herbs that worked so well to infuse the broth with a beautiful aroma were kaffir lime leaves, lemongrass, and galangal, which are still the three most important ingredients in any bowl of Tom Yum.”
This makes total sense, as Thailand’s natural highway – the Chao Phraya River – flows through central Thailand almost straight south through Bangkok, then empties into the Gulf of Thailand. The river’s fish and water fowl have fed numberless generations of Thai people, and Bangkok’s famous floating markets are filled with upriver people who come to sell their wares. Freshwater shrimp from the river would have become a Bangkok staple early on, along with other ingredients needed for the soup.
Tom Yum’s history in the U.S. is shorter and much easier to trace. America’s first Thai restaurant opened in Denver around 1960, the brainchild of the Thai wife of a visiting doctor. An outspoken political journalist in her home country, Lily Chittivej liked America’s freedom from political pressure and stayed. She opened the Chada Café at 408 E. 20th Avenue against the advice of Thai friends who told her that Americans would never eat there. They did, and the restaurant prospered. More Thai restaurants opened in Los Angeles near the end of the ‘60s, and the trend got a big boost when servicemen returning from Vietnam found they missed the light, fresh foods of Southeast Asia. Today, Thai is one of America’s favorite cuisines, and can be found from everywhere from Fairbanks to Key West
HOW TO SERVE?
Tom yum is usually served as an appetizer. It can also be consumed along with main course dishes. It is a hearty soup, hence quite filling. It should always be served piping hot with a garnish of chopped cilantro. In few versions, rice noodles are also included in the dish while serving.
BENEFITS OF TOM YUM SOUP UNDER THE STUDY
BANGKOK, Thailand -- For years, zesty Tom Yum Gung soup has been a mainstay of Thai cooking. And now researchers are thinking it just might have cancer-fighting ingredients as well as good taste.
"Tom Yum Gung is Thailand's most favorite soup," according to Chef Rolf Schmitz of the Regent Hotel's Spice Market restaurant. "It's a shrimp soup with herbal ingredients like coriander, lemon grass, lime leaves and even galangal roots."
Also called hot-and-sour soup, the dish often includes straw mushrooms and a variety of chilies.
A recent joint study by Thailand's Kasetsart University and Japan's Kyoto and Kinki Universities has found that the ingredients in Tom Yum Gung soup are 100 times more effective in inhibiting cancerous tumor growth than other foods.
Scientists are seeking to extract the chemical compounds that are most effective from soup ingredients, said Suratwadee Jiwajindra of Kasetsart University. Research also is focusing on edible plants in the region.
"The ratio of the cancer pattern in Asians, especially southeast Asians, is very low compared with the pattern in the European and Western countries," Jiwajindra said.
In fact, Thais have a much lower incidence of digestive tract cancers than people do in other countries. Traditional Thai cuisine -- famed for its heavy use of herbs and spices -- has long been known to have health benefits, Jiwajindra said.
And despite its spicy taste, Tom Yum Gung continues to be popular, said Schmitz, calling the soup "definitely the best seller if you look into the statistics." Every month, the soup is "at the top of the charts," he added.
"A day, I'd say we are making 50-60 cups in a restaurant like the Spice Market," said the chef.
RECIPES
http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/tomyumsoup_85069
Sources:
http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-tom-yum-soup.htm
https://ifood.tv/thai/tom-yum/about
https://forknplate.com/2015/08/26/tom-yum-soup-the-heart-and-soul-of-thailand/
http://edition.cnn.com/2001/HEALTH/diet.fitness/01/03/thai.soup/
http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/tomyumsoup_85069
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