Eats the World: Thai cooking - Tom yam soup recipe

We've just got back from an amazing trip to Krabi in Thailand - some more pics to come. We only had eight days but tried to pack in as much as possible, including a half day Thai cookery course at Ao Nang Thai Cookery School

For around £20 (1000 Baht) we got to choose five items to make and then eat the fruits of our labour.

The cookery school certainly wasn't high tech but it was in a beautiful setting and we'll definitely be making all the recipes again.

First up, Tom Yam soup. This sour, spicy soup is ubiquitous in Thailand and we ate it most days of our holiday. Typically this stuff is fire water and, although the flavours were always amazing, my delicate English palate meant I could rarely finish a bowl.

At Ao Nang cookery school, we were advised to add just two Thai chillis, although Sow told us she might add as many as ten when making it for her family!

Marc has definitely been inspired by our cookery course and came home today with all the ingredients for Tom Yam soup. It was absolutely delicious - just the right balance of chilli, fish sauce, lime and sugar. It's pretty simple to make, ready in about ten minutes or so, and you can get all the ingredients in an average supermarket.

Oh and you don't eat the lemon grass, ginger or lime leaves - they're just in there for flavour. Whether you eat the chillis or not depends on how brave you are.

Ingredients (serves two for main or four as a starter):

2 tbsp lime juice

2 tbsp fish sauce

1 tbsp sugar

1 fish or vegetable stock cube

250g - 300g king prawns (raw if possible)

1 stalk lemon grass, bashed and chopped into 2cm pieces

1 piece of fresh ginger, peeled and thickly sliced (use galangal if you can find it)

3 kaffir lime leaves, torn (stem peeled out)

1 shallot, bashed and roughly chopped

2 Thai chillis, chopped

75g mushrooms roughly torn (oyster mushroom if possible, but ordinary mushroom will do)

1 tomato, roughly chopped

To garnish:

1 spring onion finely chopped

Handful of fresh coriander, roughly chopped

Method:

Bring half a litre of water to the boil, add the stock cube, lime juice**, fish sauce and sugar.

Add the prawns (if using raw), lemon grass, ginger, lime leaves, shallot, chilli and mushroom and simmer for five minutes or so, until prawns are pink and cooked through.

Add the tomato (and prawns if pre-cooked) and cook for further two minutes.

Serve topped with spring onion and fresh coriander.

** You might prefer to add the lime juice at the end - it gives a fresher flavour.