This particular post has actually been a little less than a year in the making. Last year around this time, Kyle took a vacation to San Juan, Puerto Rico. His favorite restaurant there was Vianda, a lovely farm-to-table spot that offers fresh and seasonal dishes inspired by the agriculture of Puerto Rico. Kyle got started right away working on this recipe when he got home, but, alas, by the time he finished working on the recipe, it was the second week of March. Sharing a recipe that was based on traveling and required specialty ingredients when the country was locking down and the grocery stores were being stripped bare seemed a biiiiit tone deaf at that time.
Now that 2020 is behind us, we can at least try to begin a new chapter in 2021. So, we will share this recipe from one of the few, well, the one culinary highlight from our 2020. We can focus on the positive and the delicious and try, even it is for just a moment, to draw some light from the darkness.
The meal from Vianda was incredible from start to finish. The standout dish was the Bacalao Tom Kha, taking a traditional Thai dish (Tom Kha Kai) and giving it some Puerto Rican flair. Tom Kha Kai (in Thai this translates to “chicken galangal soup”) is a coconut soup that is infused with lemongrass, galangal, kaffir lime leaves, chili, mushrooms, chicken, fish sauce and lime juice. The ingredients provide spicy, sour and savory notes yielding a complex and deeply flavored soup. At Vianda, the chefs bypassed the typical protein option (chicken) and went for Salt Cod. They served the dish with a heaping portion of crispy fried rice, whose nutty flavor and crunchy texture added a whole other level to the dish.
Kyle found a recipe on Bon Appetit that served as a good starting point for his creation; however, many of the ingredients listed prevented the dish from being a true Tom Kha. Most notably, the recipe called for using ginger in place of the galangal – an ingredient that is literally in the recipe name – so this was a huge no-no. He used this particular recipe as a guideline for how to proceed. It was a bit of a game, using a (nontraditional) recipe in an attempt to recreate another nontraditional (albeit for different reasons) version of the dish, and it became a culinary Whisper-Down-the-Lane, if you will. In order to respect the original dish and avoid offending any purists, we named our recipe “Cod in Coconut Curry Broth”.
We admit it, this recipe calls for some obscure ingredients that won’t be easily found in most supermarkets – mainly the galangal and the kaffir lime leaves. They can be purchased online, so really the hardest part is patiently waiting for them to arrive. Since those ingredients had to be ordered online, Kyle used dried galangal instead of fresh, but it is a wonderful addition to many soups and stocks (it has forever changed the way he makes Chicken Congee), so it is a welcome specialty ingredient in the pantry. Now, don’t fear, you will not be creating a culinary crime if you decide to replace the galangal and kaffir lime leaves with ginger root and lime zest – we aren’t making a true Tom Kha after all.
Once you have gathered all of your ingredients, you then toss almost everything in a pot and create a complex, deeply flavored broth that becomes enriched with a can of coconut milk. This yields a creamy, spicy, tart and umami-packed soup that is rich without feeling too heavy – the perfect comfort food. The recipe does call for 2 tablespoons of fish sauce, which may seem like overkill; however, it really enhances the overall funky, umami flavors of the broth.
When Kyle was served this dish at the restaurant, the fish sauce aroma was a bit overpowering. However, once he tasted the dish, he realized the actual flavor of the fish sauce blended so beautifully with everything else, providing an assertive and pungent punch that ties the flavors together. Once you are making this recipe at home you will be amazed at how you created such a deeply flavorful and complex broth with relatively little effort. A lot of that amazing flavor is thanks to the fish sauce.
As a substitute for the Bacalao (dried Salt Cod), Kyle used regular cod fillets that he poached in the broth right at the end of cooking. You can definitely sub out the cod for any firm white fish, such as haddock or halibut, or take inspiration from the dish’s Tom Kha roots and use some shrimp or diced chicken as your protein.
Since this recipe makes a decent amount of broth, you should have plenty left over for a second batch. This means you can have two evenings of restaurant-quality meals for the work of one. At the restaurant there was a bowl of fixings on the table, such as cilantro, lime and sliced chili peppers, this allowed for one to really customize their dish to suit their exact taste.
2020 was not a great year in the lives of so many. In many ways 2021 has not started out so great either. However, one thing that may be different for many of us – is how to really savor the small things, enjoy the unique moments that we may have taken for granted in the past. I think we all deserve some fun and delicious experiences this year. If we can share these experiences together in person, fantastic. If not, we can move on to create delicious moments together virtually, we can do it. Enjoy the dish!
Inspired by Vianda
Recipe (loosely) adapted from Bon Appetit.
- For the Tom Kha
- 1 tablespoons vegetable oil
- 2 garlic cloves, minced
- 6-8 scallions, thinly sliced (reserve a tablespoon or 2 of the green parts for garnish)
- 1 small red chili pepper, thinly sliced (again, reserve a few pieces for garnish)
- 2 stalks fresh lemongrass, tough outer layers removed, and smashed with the side of a knife
- ¼ cup galangal root, sliced into ⅛ thick disks, from about a 2-inch piece (I used dried galangal root, as that was all i could find), or use ginger root
- 2 teaspoons red Thai curry paste
- 10 kaffir lime leaves, or use 1 tablespoon lime zest and ¼ cup lime juice
- 4 cups vegetable broth
- 8 ounces shiitake mushrooms, stemmed, caps cut into bite-size pieces
- 1 pound cod
- Salt and pepper
- 1 13.5-ounce can coconut milk
- 1 teaspoon brown sugar
- 2 tablespoons fish sauce
- For garnish: cilantro leaves, lime wedges and reserved scallions and pepper
- For the crispy rice:
- 1 to 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
- 2 cups cooked, leftover white rice
- Heat oil in a large pot over medium heat. Add garlic, scallions, chili pepper, lemongrass, galangal and red curry paste and cook, stirring regularly, for 5 minutes.
- Add lime leaves and vegetable broth and increase heat to high. Bring broth to a boil, then reduce heat to medium-low and simmer, uncovered, for 30 minutes. Strain broth into clean saucepan; discard solids.
- Add mushrooms to the pot and simmer on low heat for 15 minutes.
- Season the cod with salt and pepper. Add cod to the pot and continue to simmer over low heat until the cod is opaque throughout and beginning to flake, about 5 - 7 minutes (larger pieces of fish may take a couple minutes longer). Remove from heat and stir in the coconut milk, sugar, and fish sauce, and season to taste.
- While the cod cooks, heat a large frying pan over medium high heat. Add oil and let it heat up for about a minute. Scatter the rice evenly over the oil, season lightly with salt, and let it sit undisturbed for 3 - 4 minutes, until rice is brown and crispy. (it’s important not to touch it at this point - letting the rice be will get it nice and crispy!). Flip the rice over in sections and let it cook, undisturbed again, for another minute or 2.
- Ladle Tom Kha into bowls and garnish with cilantro, lime wedges, scallions and peppers. Serve with crispy rice.
Leave a Reply