Sour – spicy, orange soup with fishballs and water mimosas

Ingredients for 4 servings:

• 750 ml water
• 1 tsp palm sugar or brown cane sugar
• 2 tbsp fish sauce
• 2 shallots, small red Thai
• 3 stalks of lemongrass (the firmer upper part)
• 200 g beans, snake beans (Thai shop)
• 1 m.-sized tomato(s)
• 1 pack of fish (Fishball’s, frozen from an Asian store, 200g)
• 1 cube of broth, Thai, Tom Yam (from an Asian store)
• 1 bunch of water – mimosa (from an Asian store)
• 1 piece(s) tamarind paste, thumb-sized, pressed
• 5 red chili peppers, dried, pitted, soaked, well drained and cut into pieces
• 1 tbsp fish sauce
• 1 tbsp galangal, chopped
• 3 tbsp shallot(s), chopped red Thai
• 2 tsp shrimp paste (gapi)

Instructions

Working time approx. 40 minutes; Total time approx. 40 minutes

Tom Som Plah

Thaw the fish balls in the refrigerator one hour in advance. Grind the ingredients for the paste thoroughly in a mortar and pestle. Soak the tamarind in about 7 tablespoons of water, squeeze it out, and use only the juice. Slice the shallots, and cut the lemongrass and snake beans into pieces about 3 cm long. Cut the tomatoes into eighths. Pick off only the fern-like fronds of the water mimosa. Bring the water with the lemongrass to a simmer and dissolve the stock cube in it. Season with tamarind water, fish sauce, and sugar. Add the paste. Add the snake beans to the soup and simmer for about 5 minutes, then simmer the shallots and fish balls for another 4 minutes, until the fish balls are firm. Add the tomato eighths and let them simmer in the covered pan until hot. Finally, stir the water mimosa into the soup and serve immediately.