Authentic tom kha gai recipe (วิธีทำ ต้มข่าไก่)

In this tom kha gai recipe (ต้มข่าไก่) you'll learn how to make the authentic Thai version. Here's the full recipe:

Tom kha gai (ต้มข่าไก่) is a very popular Thai dish, and you can find it in Thailand at everywhere from nice restaurant to street food rice and curry stalls. The base of this Thai soup / curry, is coconut milk, so it has a rich and creamy flavor. Though it would often be listed as a soup, in my opinion tom kha gai (ต้มข่าไก่) is more of a curry due to the way in which it's eaten. It's served in a bowl along with plate of rice on the side, and it's usually scooped by spoon by spoon onto the rice and eaten bite by bite. In Thailand, most of the time it's eaten along with a full spread of Thai dishes to make a complete meal of well rounded flavors.

This tom kha gai recipe (ต้มข่าไก่) is actually quite easy to cook, as long as you have all the ingredients on hand - it also only takes about 30 minutes to prepare. I'm cooking this recipe in Thailand, but when I was in the US a few month before, I noticed all of the ingredients to make tom kha gai (ต้มข่าไก่) are available at Asian supermarkets. So if you live outside of Thailand, and if you have an Asian supermarket you can shop at, you should have no trouble getting these things. The biggest is the fresh coconut milk, which is best when freshly squeezed, but you can also use cans of coconut milk or cream if that's all you can. Other than coconut milk, here's the full list of ingredients you'll need to cook this tom kha gai recipe (ต้มข่าไก่):

400 grams (I used 2 chicken breasts)
6 cups coconut milk (If you use a can of coconut milk, you might want to mix equal ratios of coconut milk to water, in order to tone it down so it's not too thick or too rich.)
1 thumb chunk of galangal
3 stalks of lemongrass
1 big white onion (or 2 small white onions)
2 tomatoes
6 kaffir lime leaves
200 grams of oyster mushrooms (I used 2 big handfuls)
5 - 10 Thai chilies
½ teaspoon salt (to taste)
4 tablespoons of lime juice
small bunch of cilantro

Once you have all the ingredients ready, you basically boil them all in coconut milk for about 10 minutes, turn off the heat, add in the cilantro and lime juice, and scoop it into a bowl to consume (ok there are a few other steps to make this, but that's why I made this tom kha gai recipe ต้มข่าไก่ video).

Tom kha gai (ต้มข่าไก่) is not meant to be an overly spicy Thai dish, like some can be. Instead, it's a Thai dish that focuses on the flavor of the coconut milk and the fresh ingredients. That being said, the recipe does include some Thai bird chilies, and I would recommend adding anywhere from 5 - 10 depending on how spicy you'd like it. However, that being said, it's supposed to be a mild dish. This recipe is simple to make, it doesn't take too many ingredients, and the flavors are well rounded and tasty. Make tom kha gai for your friends and family and they are sure to love it. Try this recipe out, let me know what you think in the comments below, and thank you for watching.

Music in this video courtesy of Audio Network

Fully produced by Mark and Ying Wiens
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