The rainy season has started. It’s raining almost every night, every morning and every evening. The return to the office on a more regular basis sees a lot of jackets and shawls piling up on my chair. It’s time to think of food that is served hot (piping hot) for myself and everyone at home.
I love this dish so much! The presentation looks lovely, and the dish was so delectable! It was also light on the stomach and filling enough for both the big and small eaters.
Tom Kha Kai is a Thai soup dish that’s cooked using various fragrant roots such as lemongrass, galangal, shallot, cooked in a coconut soup base. It can be cooked with a lot of spice (lots of chilli), but in my case I kept the spice level down because of the boy.
‘Nabe’ means a Japanese cooking pot, or a stew or soup cooked in such a pot. For this recipe, it means a soup or stew that is cooked in a large cooking pot (I used my favourite Dutch oven instead), with loads of Japanese-inspired ingredients including vegetables, mushrooms, tofu and gyoza. I love that it is a pot filled to the brim because it means that it can be a full meal in its own right, so there isn’t a need to cook any rice or noodles alongside this dish.
I just celebrated Children’s Day with the boy on Wednesday. It was a couple of days earlier than the actual day, but because he had to do home-based learning that day and I had to take leave for that, I told him that I would bring him out if he completed his assignments diligently. Well, to be honest, the part about going out was the main agenda for that day; completing the homework was just a ploy to get him out. And it worked. We went to Amazonia that afternoon. And to be honest, I had as great a time at the playground as he did. It was really fun because he was there – with his imagination about the monsters and the championships. I really have to take my hat off him for what goes on in his mind.
It was such a good break from work for me.
