Yum Yum Tom Yam!

I tried hard..really hard. To encourage folks who frequent my shop to pick up baking. Some do, others find it easier to buy the finished product. But many who did pick up baking, somehow had to give it a pass when I baked the Tom Yam cookies for them to sample and handed out the recipes to them.

When they saw that they had to blend and fry the paste, many just gave up altogether. While they may found a new love in baking, they haven't figure out pounding spices and cooking it.

And many who have tasted my signature Tomyam cookies, ask me time and again if they could pay me to bake them a tub. So I relented. Because it was Deepavali. So far, 2 ladies have ask me for this. And baked for them. :)

Anyhow, here's the recipe for you to try at home. I only have pictures of the cookies in a tub because I didn't have time to take individual closed up shots.

If you want it extra spicy, just add more paste to the cookie dough. But I find that too much of a good thing may make this cookie lose its real taste. You are eating a cookie, not drinking tom yam soup. You should eat it and taste a hint of after taste of Tom Yam lingering in your taste buds. Giving that sensation of spicy, lemony hotness in your mouth!

Enjoy!


TomYam Cookies
Recipe By Gina Choong

Ingredients
150ml corn oil
100g fine sugar
350g Cake flour
3 tbsp tomyam paste
6 pcs Kaffir Lime Leaves, shred


Method
1. Add oil to mix with tom yam paste.
2. Add sugar and shredded leaves. next to mix.
3. Next add flour, mix to combined.
4. Scoop out portions using a cookie scoop. Baked in preheated oven at 180C for 20 minutes. Leave to cool completely before storing.

TomYam Paste
Recipe by Gina Choong


Makes 200g
Ingredients A
15 large chilli
10 chilli padi
10 shallots
5 cloves of garlic
1 stalk of lemon grass
5 petals from the Torch ginger plant (sometimes called the rojak flower)
1 inch of galangal (blue ginger)

Ingredients B
100ml assam juice(use 1 tbsp assam paste mix with 100ml water)
2 tbsp salt
5 tbsp sugar
6 pcs of kaffir lime leaves(cut into shreds)

Method
1. Blend all the ingredients A except ingredients B till smooth
2. Heat up the wok with corn oil and add puree paste.
3. Fry over low heat, stirring occasionally till its fragrant (about 15 mins)
4. Add salt, sugar, assam juice and continue to cook for another 10 mins.
5. Finally add kaffir lime leaves and turn off the fire. Stir to mix evenly.

This is the Kaffir Lime plant. The lime is that big speckled green fruit. This plant belongs to my neigbhour who lives across my flat. He and his wife are retirees and spend their time pottering round their little herb and fruit garden and whipping up delicious Peranankan dishes. I had my own Kaffir lime plant too but it just had leaves because I didn't have space for it to grow and blossom.



This is how the Torch ginger plant look like. These are easily available from the market. Occasionally, you may find this in our local supermarkets. All you need is the pink petals.



When the flower blooms, it cannot be use for cooking. But its such a beautiful flower when its in full bloom. I took this photo while holidaying with my in-laws in Chiang Mai, Thailand.