A Recipe for Chicken Wing Tom Yum Soup
From Pai Chongchitnant's "Sabai"
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Last week, I chatted with Pailin “Pai” Chongchitnant from Hot Thai Kitchen for the sixth installment of the “That One Dish Spotlight” series—touching on everything from the things she’s learned in over a decade of teaching people how to cook Thai food online, to just how much the YouTube landscape has changed and how content’s evolving with it. (Do check it out here if you happened to miss it). Spoiler alert: Pai’s “one dish” is tom yum—and she talked about how, despite being Thai in origin, the flavors of this dish have been “incorporated, modified, and turned into so many different things.” It’s an easily modifiable soup that can employ any kind of meat or seafood; as long as you’ve got what she calls the “tom yum trinity—makrut lime leaves, galangal, and lemongrass,” you’re good to go.
For today’s dispatch, I’m sharing with you all this recipe for Pai’s version of chicken tom yum from her latest cookbook, “Sabai,” a collection of simple Thai recipes that you can make on any day of the week. Pai writes that she loves using chicken wings here (more specifically, drumettes), as their high bone-to-meat ratio will transform even plain water into a stock that’s richer and more delicious than anything you can buy at the grocery store. They also don’t require any chopping, which is a huge win when you need to get dinner on the table quickly.
If you’re not jazzed about navigating chicken bones in your soup, Pai also notes you can instead opt for using a pound of bite-sized boneless chicken thighs. Be sure to swap out the water for unsalted chicken broth if you decide to go down that route, however; without the bones from the wings, the meat won’t yield a rich enough broth and the resulting soup won’t be nearly as good.
Serves 4
5 cups water
1 1/2 pounds chicken drumettes
1/2 cup coarsely chopped shallots
3-4 tablespoons fish sauce
2-3 teaspoons granulated sugar
5 dried chiles, such as Thai chiles or chiles de àrbol, or more to taste
2 stalks lemongrass, bottom halves only, smashed and cut into 2-inch pieces
10 thin slices (25 grams) galangal
10 makrut lime leaves
100 grams shimeji or oyster mushrooms
1 1/2 cups halved cherry tomatoes
3-4 tablespoons lime juice
7-8 sprigs cilantro, chopped
Jasmine rice, for serving
Bring the water to a boil in a large pot over high heat. Add the chicken drumettes, shallots, fish sauce and sugar. Simmer until the chicken is fork-tender, about 20 minutes.
While the chicken is cooking, char the dried chilies for additional smoky flavor. Place the chilies in a dry skillet over medium-high heat and stir them for a few minutes, until they develop charred spots and smell smoky. Keep an eye on them and don’t walk away! Once charred, set aside.
When the chicken is tender, add the dried chilies (keep them whole for a milder soup, break them up for a spicy soup), lemongrass, galangal, and mushrooms. Twist the makrut lime leaves to bruise them and release their aroma before tearing them into big chunks and adding to the pot, discarding any big center stems. Simmer for 5 to 7 minutes.
Add the tomatoes and cook until they’re soft, but still hold their shape, about 2 minutes. Turn off the heat and stir in the lime juice. Taste and adjust the seasoning with more fish sauce, sugar, or lime juice as needed. You want it to lead with sour and salty. The sweetness is there for balance, but the soup should not taste distinctly sweet. Before serving, you can remove the herbs, as they are not meant to be eaten, though they are traditionally left in the soup. I like to remove only half to make it a little easier to eat while keeping the traditional look. Be sure to remind your guests not to eat them!
Garnish the soup with cilantro and serve with jasmine rice. The meat should be super tender and easy to pry off the bones with a spoon.
Recipe adapted from “Sabai: 100 Simple Thai Recipes for Any Day of the Week” by Pailin Chongchitnant. Copyright © 2023. Used with permission of Appetite by Random House. All rights reserved.