In just 35 minutes, you can have this silky, spicy take on a Thai soup favorite
The flavor of this quick pot might at first remind you of a popular Thai soup, but the coconut milk, fresh ginger and Sriracha take it someplace else. Without the lemon grass, tomato and mushrooms found in Tom Yum Gai, the result is silky through the first slurp — and then that chile-garlic hot sauce kicks in. The thin pieces of white-meat chicken cook to a lovely tenderness in just a few minutes.
The only knifework involved is for the ginger and the chicken, so the prep is easy.
With this recipe, we'll institute a new canned coconut milk policy: Unless there is other blending involved, we will no longer call for a can to be “well shaken” — because let's face it, unless you have access to the paint-mixing machines at a hardware store, you are not going to properly reconstitute the congealed fat at the top and the watery milk beneath it. So we are recommending a quick extra step: Dump and scrape the contents of the can into a container, then use an immersion (stick) blender to make the coconut milk all one-note creamy again.
There are certain brands, such as Aroy D, that seem to stay fairly creamy. If you have such a can on hand, skip our blending step.