Tom Kha Gai, or Chicken soup with coconut milk and galangal 南薑椰汁雞湯

As home cooks, we tend to stay in our comfort zones and stick with the cuisines that we grew up eating. As a Chinese who spent almost half of my life in the West, I cook mostly Chinese food and bake western-style desserts, with occassional forays into French cooking. After all, the food of a people is like a language with its own distinct vocabulary that takes years to master. In this day and age, it's easy to pull out recipes of any cuisine in the world on the internet and try to cook up something 'ethnic'. But it takes years of living with the locals for a person to really know the food of a country different from his own.

I've always loved the food of southeast Asia with its kaleidoscopic melange of fresh herbs and spices. My grandma from my mother's side actually was born in Indonesia and my family always had a penchant for the spicy, aromatic cuisines of that part of the world. In Hong Kong, however, Thai food a lot more popular than Indonesian food. Most of the local Thai restaurants are not terribly authentic - they tone down the spices, the herbs and sourness for Cantonese people who like mild flavours. I've long stayed away from cooking Thai food since I felt that I don't have the necessary culinary experience and knowledge to cook genuine Thai food - until now!

I came across this cookbook by a Thai hairstylist called  阿泰 who has been living in Taiwan since 10. Even though he left Thailand at an early age, the flavours of his country stuck with him and he learnt to cook Thai food from his mother, who has sadly passed away. In fact, cooking Thai food has become something of an emotional therapy for him. It's a gem of a cookbook, with an index of common Thai ingredients and how to use them. The recipes range from familiar fair such as curry and tom yum kung to interesting dishes like raw shrimp in spicy fish sauce and sago meatballs. The book is in Chinese, and I would recommend anyone who likes Thai food to grab a copy.

Massaman chicken curry - first attempt at making my own curry paste!

I've made three dishes from the book so far: massaman chicken curry (see picture above), steamed fish with lime, chilli and garlic sauce, and this chicken soup with coconut milk and galangal which I'm sharing with you today. It's incredibly easy to cook so long as you can lay your hand on the ingredients. If you have a southeastern asian grocery nearby, chances are they'll carry them: galangal, kaffir lime leaves, lemongrass. One caveat: you really need to use fresh, rather than dried herbs! It summons up the fresh, herby, spicy mixtures of flavours that make Thai food so addictive.

Cream of mushroom soup

When I was growing up in Hong Kong, my exposure to western food was limited. Sure, compared to China and other less developed countries in the world, our food scene was already much more cosmopolitan in its outlook. That said, as a little kid, my conception of western food consisted of KFC, McDonald's and Pizza Hut. I knew that there were steak houses but obviously I couldn't afford it! It was when I moved to England at 16 that I gradually got to know the diverse traditions and culture behinds the cuisines of Western Europe.

I also remember going to Pizza Hut was something of a family treat at weekends. Unfortunately, I didn't really like pizzas nor the salad bar there, so I would smuggle spicy chicken wings from KFC (which was in the same shopping centre CityPlaza) and indulge in them while the grown-ups were eating pizzas and salad. I could eat 18 wings at a time, btw! One item that I did enjoy at Pizza Hut, however, was their cream of mushroom soup. It was unlike any Chinese soup mum would make at home, and its creaminess and bold flavour were addictive for a kid. It also had bits of chicken in it I believe?

I stopped going to Pizza Hut a long time ago when I discovered how pizzas should be like, so the taste of their cream of mushroom soup is buried in a distant corner of my memory. I actually think that I probably wouldn't like it any more, but I do have my own version that I can resort to in moments of desperation. It's based on Simon Hopkinson's recipe, but I've streamlined the preparation somewhat. The large amount of mushrooms thickens the soup naturally after blending, so there is no need to make a roux or add any potato to the soup.