Non-Tom Kha Gai with Chicken and Broccoli

I got a good recipe for tom kha gai from Cook’s Illustrated, but the problem is that it contains a lot of coconut milk, which is like the bacon of asian cuisine — delicious but deadly. So I decided to try the same basic approach without the coconut milk, and I combined it with a stir fry for an odd but tasty dish.

Soup Ingredients
2 cloves of garlic, minced
1 serrano pepper, sliced
1 tbsp cilantro, chopped
1 tbsp lemon balm, chopped
2 c low sodium chicken stock
1/4 cup lime juice
1 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp fish sauce
1 tbsp skim mik
1 tbsp sugar
1/4 lb crimini mushrooms, thinly sliced
2 tbsp green tea
1 tsp green curry paste
olive oil
Soup DIrections
Heat the olive oil in a large saucepan on medium high. add the garlic, serrano, cilantro, and lemon balm and saute for a couple of minutes. add the chicken stock, soy, fish sauce, milk, and lime juice. bring to a simmer on high, then cover and simmer on low for 10-15 minutes. strain out the solids, rinse the sucepan, and then put back on medium heat. add the sugar and stir. bring it back to a simmer on high and add the mushrooms, let it simmer on medium for about five minutes. mix the curry paste with the green tea, take the soup off the heat, add the tea/paste, and serve.
Stir-fry Ingredients
1 lb boneless chicken breast, medium-sliced
1 small head of broccoli
a smidge of olive oil
fresh-ground black pepper
Stir-fry Directions
Meanwhile, heat the oil to medium-high in a skillet. add the chicken, sprinkle with some pepper, and fry for a few minutes, stirring constantly. add the broccoli and a little more pepper. and stir fry a few minutes until the chicken’s done. serve the stir-fry in a bowl, with the soup poured over it.
Verdict
A little too much fish sauce in the soup. The flavor was good but the color was an uninspiring brown, and a little oily (not very). It tasted pretty good though. The stir fry was bland, which is fine since it’s meant to have with the soup. It doesn’t win any awards for aesthetics but it tasted pretty good.