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Lemongrass Sour Soup - Flavourfully Good
Flavourfully Good

Lemongrass Sour Soup

The soup is one of the most popular dishes in Cambodia. It tastes sweet, sour and cooked with ingredients such as beef, kroerng, prahok "fermented fish." and a mix of vegetables: water spinach "morning glory", eggplant, curry leaves, and tamarind for sourness.
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Prep Time 15 minutes
Cook Time 1 hour 30 minutes
Total Time 1 hour 45 minutes
Servings: 5 people
Course: Main Course
Cuisine: Cambodian, Khmer
Calories: 450
Ingredients Method

Ingredients
  

Cooking Ingredients:
  • 500 g beef with tendon
  • 200 g water spinach or morning glory
  • 300 g round eggplant
  • 20 g curry leaves
  • 50 g fermented fish
  • 1 tbsp salt
  • 1 tbsp palm sugar
  • 1 tbsp chicken soup base mix
  • 1 tbsp fish sauce
  • 2 heaping tbsp tamarind paste
  • 125 ml lemongrass paste juice
  • 2 liters water
Lemongrass Paste:
  • 37 g Lemongrass thinly slice
  • 16 g galangal thinly slice
  • 30 g garlice
  • 3 kaffir lime leaves thinly slice
  • 5 g turmeric
  • 125 ml water
Tamarind Paste:
  • 30 g tamarind seedless
  • 4-5 tbsp hot boiling water
Sweet and Sour Fish Sauce:
  • 1 tbsp fish sauce
  • 1 tbsp warm water
  • 1 tsp sugar
  • 1/2 slice lime
  • 2 chilies

Method
 

Preparation:
  1. First, prepare all the vegetables. Chop and clean well with water and set aside.
  2. Tamarind paste:
    In a small bowl, combine hot boiling water and tamarind, then stir until it becomes a paste.
  3. Lemongrass paste:
    Use a blender, put all the ingredients in: lemongrass (thinly sliced), garlic, galangal (thinly sliced), kaffir lime leaves (thinly sliced), turmeric, and water blend until becomes a paste. Then extract the juice for later use.
  4. Fermented fish: finely chop and set aside.
  5. Beef: thinly slice.
Cooking:
  1. In a large pot, over medium heat, add the beef and stir, then add lemongrass paste, chopped fermented fish, and stir to combine.
  2. Continue adding in: salt, palm sugar, chicken soup base mix, fish sauce, tamarind paste, stir. Cover and simmer. While simmering, keep stirring occasionally to avoid burning on the bottom. Add lemongrass juice and stir, then continue simmering.
  3. Once the water has evaporated, add water and bring to a boil then add in eggplant and water spinach.
  4. Curry leaves:
    Roast the curry leaves on a nonstick pan until fragrant. Traditionally, we grill the leaves directly on the fire to have the smokey fragrant.
  5. Then after grilling, add the leaves immediately into the broth and stir to combine. It's ready to serve.
Sweet fish sauce (optional):
  1. In a small sauce bowl, mix fish sauce, warm water, sugar, lime, chilies and mix well.
  2. Serve with rice.
  3. Enjoy!