[Masak Bareng Yuk] Tom Yum Gong

Aha... the first month of year 2009 is almost gone. This is my very first posting this year. Wow...
Now, I'm speechless, I don't know what to say what to write. Haven't been blogging for a month make my brain 'stuck'; I don't know where to start. Hhhmm, Ok... I'll try my best :)

Our 3 weeks vacation in Indonesia was totally awesome. We enjoyed lots of good memorable food there. I took lots of pictures of those food; some of them have been uploaded in our Flickr, some of them are still sitting down nicely in my hard disk. Hopefully I'll have enough time & energy to upload all of them and write about those food here in my blog.

We're back to Mumbai 3 weeks ago, and my kids have started their school. Our activities are back to normal rhythm. Everything goes smooth. I'm so glad to see my kids are happy & healthy, enjoy the busy activities. Almost every night I listen to my daughter playing her violin, her recorder, or playing angklung, the Indonesia traditional bamboo musical instrument. Now, both of them enjoy biking, especially since my little boy can ride his bike without using the two small assistant wheels in the back. I feel grateful everytime watching them. Thanks to my darling husband who was willing to follow them jogging and running, making sure no one would get hurt.

There are many plans and many hope in 2009 in our family. Having healthy food everyday is one of my objectives. Other plan, ... let me keep them in my head for now :)
One of my long list plans is to be consistantly joining this 'Masak Bareng yuk' (Let's Cook Together) programme. Hopefully this year I'll never miss their monthly 'task'. Special thanks for Ayin, Deetha and Shinta, the trio hosts who have made this event become more enjoyable.

The theme of Masak Bareng Yuk for this month is Tom Yum Gong. A couple of days ago I started collecting the recipes from my recipe books. I found 2 of them; one is from Primarasa Indonesia, a special edition of 'Thailand Food' and another one is from Australian Women Weekly 'Meal Minutes Asian'. I have compared and mixed both recipes and be ready to cook. This morning, I stopped by in the supermarket near by our apartment to find coriander leaves. In one rack I found 'Tom Yum Paste' that actually was not in my shopping list, neither in my recipe ingredients. I couldn't help my hand to grab it, oooh... it's made in Thailand, and the price was not too expensive (Rs.30). So I bought it thinking that I'll use it someday and will compare the result with my first trial tonight.

This evening, when I was preparing all the ingredients in my kitchen table, suddenly I changed my mind. I wanted to use this Tom Yum Paste and follow the recipes printed behind the packaging. All the ingredients that I had prepared before were almost the same with the ingredients from that 'packaging' recipe. And... yipppi.... instantly our apartment smelled so good, as good as in a Thai Restaurant ha.ha.ha... Yeah, the Tom Yum Soup is perfect, very delicious. I served it with our homemade fried wonton. We really enjoyed it.

Here is the recipe:
1. Boil 2 cups of water, when it is boiled put 1 pack of Tom Yum paste.
2. Put 15 gr of galangal, 30 gr of lemon grass and 50 gr of mushroom, then keep boiling.
3. Wait until it is boiled, just put 200 gr of shrimps or your favorite meal (Turn of the heat when it is boiled)
4. Pour 1/2 tbsp of fish sauce and 1/2 tbsp of lime juice or as preferred.
5. Before serving, just put 2-3 leaves of torn kaffir lime leaves and some well cut parsley (I used coriander leaves).