Homemade Tom Ka Gai (Spicy & Sour Coconut Chicken Soup)

My favorite take out meal has got to be Tom Ka Gai, a sour and spicy fragrant Thai soup made with coconut milk, lime juice, and thai spices like galangal, kefir leaves, lemongrass, and chilies. Every restaurants' version of this soup is a little different. Having now made this soup at home, I've come to realize that some restaurants add cream to their soup and others add flours to thicken it. If you have food allergies, make sure to ask the server about possible additives in your soup. Otherwise, you can use my recipe and safely make it at home without any worries.

Tangy & Tasty: How to Make Solyanka Without Nitrates

Growing up, my mom made two soups that I enjoyed very much. The recipe for the first, Borscht, I've already shared with you. The second soup is called Solyanka, a thick, spicy and sour soup. Solyanka can be made with fish or veggies, but at our house, it was always made with meat - and lots of it. My mom would freeze old cured meats for months in preparation for making a large pot. This soup brings me back to my childhood, to a start of a new school year and shopping for new pens and pencils. It's my "macaroni and cheese."

Nowadays, we steer clear of cured meats because of the dangers of nitrates and nitrates, but luckily there are plenty of uncured options available. In addition to cured meats, the soup is usually made with tomatoes and my mom used to make it with ketchup. Similarly to cured meats, we generally don't eat nightshades at home, since the hubby gets heartburn and it aggravates my arthritic pain. So I've developed a real food, tomato free soup that decreases the meat and increases veggies. I have also added sauerkraut to the recipe. I just felt like it would greatly add to the tartness of the soup, while adding bulk.

I'm also making my soup with Bright Earth Foods Himalayan Sea Salt. I'm a huge fan of Bright Earth Foods. I discovered them at my local co-op in San Francisco Rainbow Grocery when I was looking at unrefined sweeteners. Their mission of bringing wellness through nutrition really resonates with me. But honestly, they sell some amazing stuff. I'm going to be writing more about them in the upcoming weeks, but in the meantime check out their site.

Solyanka
Ingredients

Broth
1 lb pastured/organic beef bones (knuckles, marrow)
1 lb either pastured/organic short ribs or shank cross cut or brisket
1 onion
4 bay leaves
14 pepper corns
Bunch of parsley
1 tbsp Bright Earth Foods Himalayan Sea Salt 


Soup
2 cups sauerkraut (naturally fermented with just salt and spices)
1/4 cup pitted Kalamata Olives (make sure that they are made with just salt and come in glass jar to avoid BPA)
1/4 cup pitted green olives (make sure that they are made with just salt and come in glass jar to avoid BPA)
3 large dill pickles (naturally fermented with just salt)
16 oz uncured pastrami
2 beef franks (I used Fork in the Road)
1 large bunch of Swiss Chard (I prefer chard specifically vs. kale, I wouldn't recommend subbing with kale. You can also use Sorrel if it's in season)

Process:
1. Put all herbs and spices into a tea bag filter

2. Fill pot with about 6-7 quarts of filtered water and add onion, bones, meat, and salt

3. Bring to boil, then turn heat down to low and simmer for 24-36 hours

4. Let sit until cooled and fat hardens at the top. Skim fat with a slotted spoon

5. Once broth is cooked, remove meat from bones and discard then with the tea bag and onion

6. Set pot back on stove and heat

7. Cube beef franks, pastrami, and pickles and add to the pot

8. Slice olives and add to the pot (if they are small enough, you can just throw them whole)

9. Add sauerkraut to pot

10. Cut Swiss Chard in to small strips and add to pot

12. Simmer on medium low heat for 30 minutes

13. Enjoy!

How to Make Authentic Russian Borscht

I was born in Riga, Latvia, a country in Eastern Europe that borders Russia. When I was born, it was still part of the USSR. I grew up eating a fairly traditional Easter European diet until we immigrated to the United States. My diet consisted of smoked fish, dark rye bread, fermented pickles and sauerkraut, homemade cottage cheese, caviar, cured meats and lots of soups. We always had a pot of soup at home, whether it was Uha (fish soup), vegetable soup with meatballs, bean soup, or my favorite, borscht. My mom always made the most amazing borscht. I could eat it daily and sometimes more than once a day. When I moved out of the house, making soup seemed so daunting to me and it was one of the last things I learned to cook.

A couple of years ago, I asked my mom to share her recipe with me. As I've mentioned before, I'm really bad at following recipes and luckily my mom is really bad at writing them down. She explained to me how she made it and gave me some pointers on how to get my borscht to be the most beautiful ruby red color. Over the last two years, I've been perfecting my recipe and now I am ready to share it with the world.

Authentic Borscht
1 lb of pastured/organic beef bones (knuckles and femur are best)
1 large pastured/organic beef short rib
1 large onion
3 medium beets
3 large carrots
1 small red or green cabbage
1/2 cup of sauerkraut
12 green peppercorns
2 tbsp Celtic Salt
1 spring of Parsley and another half spring for later
1 spring of Dill and another half spring for later

Process:
1. Put bones, short rib, onion, peppercorns, salt, parsley and dill into a large pot. I like to put the peppercorns and herbs into a large unbleached teabag 

2. Bring to boil and then reduce to low heat and cook for 24-36 hours

3. After broth is done cooking, let cool and take off layer of fat that forms at the top

4. Remove bones, but leave any meat inside the pot. Remove onion and bag of herbs

5. Peel beets and carrots and add to pot. Bring to boil

6. Shred cabbage

7. After about 45 minutes, remove beets and carrots and shred using a food processor

8. Add shredding beets and carrots back into the pot, add sauerkraut and cook for another 20 minutes

9. Chop dill and parsley and add into the soup

10. Turn off heat

11. Enjoy!