Thai spiced sweet Potato and coconut soup.

I promised more uses for Tom Yum paste and here one is! This soup is delicious, both fresh, exotic and creamy - warming, yet perfect for summer evenings too. It would also make a delicious sauce to serve with White Fish, or you could even put chunks of white fish in after blending the soup and let it simmer again until the fish is cooked. J

Serves 4-6

Ingredients

4 medium sized sweet potatoes

5 Peppers – I used 4 yellow one green, but red and orange would almost certainly work just as well flavour wise.

1 large onion

Garlic cloves

Tom yum paste

Fresh ginger and/or dried Galangal

Chilli/chilli paste

1 can Coconut milk

Dried Kaffir Lime leaves

Thai 7 spice seasoning

Water

Soy sauce (2 tablespoons)

Fish sauce (1 teapsoon)

Method

1.First prepare your Sweet potatoes – peel the skin and chop into approx. 2-4 cm squares. Put to one side.

2.Chop Chillis/Add Chilli paste, and crushed/chopped garlic clove into a deep saucepan/ casserole pan.

3.Chop the onions into large squares. The easiest way to do it is like this.

Start to fry gently on the hob on a medium-low heat, in butter and a little oil, sesame oil is good if you have it to hand.

4.Chop the peppers into a similar size and add these to the pan.

5.Boil a full kettle of water.

6.Meanwhile add a 1 inch piece of grated fresh ginger, and/or several pieces of dried galangal chopped into small pices.

7.Put the potato in the pan, Add the Coconut milk, then pour in water until the veg is JUST covered.

8.Stir in Tom Yum paste, soy sauce, a few drops of Fish Sauce, drop in a few lime leaves and add some Thai 7 Spice seasoning if so desired.

9.Allow it to simmer until the potatoes are falling apart. Here I skimmed off the oil from the top to keep calories down a little. It was quite easy to do with just a spoon, and helps the soup to keep from separating once you’ve served it . 10.Once the potato is cooked, taste the broth, add any extra of the ingredients you feel it needs, like a tad more soy sauce, and then blend it. You can allow it to cool first if you want, but I’ve never had a problem mixing hot soup with a hand blender as long as the blades are fully submerged in soup before you press the blend button!

You could also leave it chunky if you don’t have a blender, but it doesn’t look as pretty J

Serve with a lime leaf for decoration, or even some Wasabi peas as croutons!