Make this tasty spicy and sour Thai Seafood Soup (Tom Yum Talay) at home. Just add in prawns and your favourite selection of seafood
Seafood Soup (Tom Yum Talay)
Thai Tom Yum Goong (with prawns) is one of my favourite soups. It is beautifully fragrant with a balance of spicy, sour and sweet flavours in its prawn broth. You’ll normally find Tom Yum listed in the appetiser section at Thai restaurants. When it arrives at the table, it’s served in a small bowl with 3 or 4 prawns and some mushrooms and tomatoes.
That’s because the broth is the star of the show and if I have a delicious balanced broth, I’ll only need steamed Jasmine rice to make me happy. However, in saying that, I would love to have more seafood in my soup! The fragrant flavours of lemongrass, galangal kaffir lime leaves would do incredible things to crab, mussels, firm fish, squid and prawns.
After some quick research, I discovered that Thai Tom Yum seafood soup exists, and it’s named ‘Tom Yum Talay’. What? Either I haven’t been looking at my menus properly or the Thai restaurants I’ve visited don’t offer this dish. I have been missing out!
The preparation of the fresh seafood takes a bit of time, like peeling and deveining of the prawns, cleaning the crab and scoring the squid. Once you got past that part, it’s a straightforward recipe. I got all the ingredients from my local mall with no trouble.
Looking for some creamy soups to warm your heart? Try this tasty Mushroom Leek Soup or our favourite hot or cold Wasabi and Pea Soup.
3 weeks of torrential rain calls for piping hot soup
I had a bit of a scare this morning. After a long weekend in the city for my birthday, I woke up with a raw and sore throat. Half asleep, I scrambled to find a mask to put on before meeting my toddler, Kai. Could I’ve caught a new strain of COVID on the weekend? That thought instantly crossed my mind. My husband, Tomasi, took a brief break from work and came upstairs to do a RAT test for me.
Thankfully, my test returned a negative result. Our household could breathe easily. The memories of us in isolation with COVID during December 2021 last year still haunt us.
It’s been raining nonstop for the last 3 weeks, but it’s quite humid even though it’s been pelting down. Here I am, blowing my nose with a massive headache and body aches and were all lounging around the house in shorts and singlets when it’s stormy outside.
The hardest part is taking care of my energetic toddler, Kai, when my body needs rest. We’ve actually got a little sun today after 3 weeks of torrential rain. I really wanted to take him to play outdoors in a park, but I was feeling too lousy, so we stayed at home.
Being two, I don’t expect Kai to understand my need for personal space when I’m sick. He would regularly leap on me roughly and sometimes accidentally headbutts me or kicks me. Trust me on this one, it hurts! Right now, Kai is obsessed with giving me Eskimo kisses. We would rub our noses together, along with him drooling all over me, then he’ll break into a fit of contagious giggles.
Kai, as usual, was sitting on the kitchen bench this morning whilst I was making our breakfast. He has a container of Froot Loops he likes to nibble on before he eats his Weet-Bix and banana. Kai clasped a bunch of Froot Loops to shove in his little mouth when one escaped and dropped on the floor. ‘Uh oh, mum! mum! get it! get the O’ He demanded. How cute is that? I couldn’t help but laugh. He calls his Froot Loops ‘O’ as in the letter.
I wished I had this Thai Seafood Soup waiting for me, but unfortunately, I made this soup a few weeks ago. Luckily Tomasi stepped up and, like a hero, he announced that ‘I’ll order Uber Eats for us’.
Unfortunately, the Thai place hubby ordered from was pretty average. Home cooking is so much better because we’re able to adjust flavours and ingredients to how we like it. Also, there’s no overcooked, rubbery seafood in our soup!
Ingredients for Thai Seafood Soup
FOR THE SOUP
Galangal root looks similar to ginger, but it’s firmer and harder to cut through. It has a citrus and woody flavour, whereas ginger tastes peppery. They’re not really interchangeable, but if you can’t find galangal, then swap with ginger, as this is the closest you can get. You need a little less ginger than galangal because it’s more potent.
Lemongrass – Cut 2cm off from the base of the lemongrass and keep 10-15cm of the stalk and cut off the remaining. Peel off 2 to 3 layers off, then cut the lemongrass in half. Smash the lemongrass a few times using a heavy object like a rolling pin. This will help the lemongrass release its flavours whilst cooking.
Kaffir lime leaves – These fragrant green leaves are pretty and distinct. A single kaffir lime leaf looks like there are two leaves conjoined together at the ends. They usually separate the leaves when sold, so count the leaves as they are (1 conjoined leaf = 2 leaves for this recipe)
Chicken stock – I prefer using salt-reduced chicken stock as I have more control over the sodium level. It’s always better to be under-seasoned than over-seasoned as it’s easier to adjust the dish to our taste.
Fish sauce – My favourite brand is Thai ‘Squid’ fish sauce, but any brand of fish sauce will work. It’s sold at supermarkets in the International section or at an Asian grocery store. Fish sauce is pungent with a strong fish smell but adds wonderful flavours to Asian cuisines.
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FOR THE SEAFOOD
The only seafood that is a must here is the raw prawns, as its shells are used to flavour the broth. That means you may use any variety of seafood you like. I used firm white fish (snapper fillet), squid tube, blue swimmer crab and mussels.
How to make Thai Seafood Soup
Step-by-step guide with photos
Peel the prawns, leaving the tail intact, but DON’T THROW AWAY THE HEAD AND SHELLS. Slice a shallow slit along the back of the prawn and remove its intestinal tract (black line). Optional – for presentation leave a few prawns unpeeled to place on top of the soup before serving.
In a large saucepan, place in the prawn heads and shells (not the peeled prawns), garlic, onion, galangal, lemongrass, kaffir lime leaves and chillies. Pour in the chicken stock and water and place over medium heat until the soup boils.
Once the soup boils, reduce the heat to low and place a lid over the saucepan. Cook for 30 minutes covered for the soup flavour to develop. Using a large heatproof strainer, strain the soup into another large saucepan. Discard the shells, spices and any solids.
The soup smells so good!
Place the tomatoes, sugar and fish sauce into the strained soup and cook over medium-high heat. Once the soup boils, add in the crab, peeled and any unpeeled prawns, cook for a minute then add the mussels, fish and squid. Let the soup cook for another minute, then reduce the heat to low and cook for a further 5 minutes.
Remove the saucepan from the heat and stir in the lime juice. Have a taste and adjust to your liking, if needed, by adding more sugar, salt or lime juice. Give it a good stir and serve with coriander over the top.
Leftovers – Allow the soup to cool completely at room temperature. Transfer the soup into an airtight container and refrigerate. It’ll be good for up to 3 days.
A Third-Party Application calculated the calories and nutritional information. Please use this as an approximate guide only.
Cooking measurements are in Australian standard spoon and cup measurements.
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Cheers (I’ll drink to that) – Cat Tre
Thai Seafood Soup (Tom Yum Talay)
Ingredients
SEAFOOD
- 600 gm raw prawns (with head and shells)
- 1 raw blue swimmer crab (cleaned and cut into sections)
- 8 Mussels (with shell)
- 150 gm firm white fish (sliced into bite-sized pieces)
- 100 gm squid tube (scored and sliced into bite-sized pieces)
FOR THE BROTH
- 6 cloves garlic (bruised)
- 4 cm galangal (1.6in sliced roughly) (NOTE 1)
- 4 stalks lemongrass (cut in half and bruised) (NOTE 2)
- 12 kaffir lime leaves (roughly torn) (NOTE 3)
- 3 small red chillies (sliced thinly, more or less to taste)
- 3 cups salt-reduced chicken stock (low sodium) (NOTE 4)
- 6 cups water
- 2 ripe tomatoes (cut into wedges)
- 1 small brown onion (cut into wedges)
- 2 tsp sugar
- ½ cup fish sauce (NOTE 5)
- ½ cup fresh lime juice
- coriander (cilantro, to serve and garnish)
- salt (season to taste)
Instructions
- Peel the prawns, leaving the tail intact, but DON'T THROW AWAY THE HEAD AND SHELLS. Slice a shallow slit along the back of the prawn and remove its intestinal tract (black line). Optional – for presentation leave a few prawns unpeeled to place on top of the soup before serving.
- In a large saucepan, place in the prawn heads and shells (not the peeled prawns), garlic, onion, galangal, lemongrass, kaffir lime leaves and chillies. Pour in the chicken stock and water and place over medium heat until the soup boils.
- Once the soup boils, reduce the heat to low and place a lid over the saucepan. Cook for 30 minutes covered for the soup flavour to develop. Using a large heatproof strainer, strain the soup into another large saucepan. Discard the shells, spices and any solids.
- Place the tomatoes, sugar and fish sauce into the strained soup and cook over medium-high heat. Once the soup boils, add in the crab, peeled and any unpeeled prawns, cook for a minute then add the mussels, fish and squid. Let the soup cook for another minute, then reduce the heat to low and cook for a further 5 minutes.
- Remove the saucepan from the heat and stir in the lime juice. Have a taste and adjust to your liking, if needed, by adding more sugar, salt or lime juice. Give it a good stir and serve with coriander over the top.
Been looking for this recipe for such a long time. It’s marvellous, we were very impressed with the traditional flavours. Thanks for this recipe Catalina.
Hi Fiona,
You’re most welcome! I’m so happy you enjoyed the beautiful Thai flavours in this soup.