Gang Pa Gai Baan – Thai Spicy Chicken Soup Recipe

Gang Pa Gai Baan (Spicy Chicken Soup with Herbs)

If it seems like everything you can cook in Thailand is spicy, that’s pretty close to the truth! Our desserts are NOT usually spicy though! For most recipes, you can just omit the chilis or dried red pepper or whatever else makes it spicy. For this one especially, there’s no need to make it hot and spicy if you don’t want it that way.

Preparation for Thai Spicy Chicken Soup

• Chicken Meat with Bone – 500g.
• Pumpkin – 1/2 cup, cut.
• Galangal – 1/2 cup, sliced (long shape).
• Basil or Sweet Basil – 1/4 cup.
• Pepper Corn – 2 groups, young.
• Sweet Pepper – 1 tbsp., sliced.
• Kaffir Lime Leaves – 5 pieces.
• Wing Bean – 1/2 cup, cut.
• Eggplant – 1/2 cup, cut.
• Fish Sauce – 3 tbsp.
• Sugar – 1 tsp.
• Solanum torvum or Thai Eggplant or Turkeyberry – 1/4 cup (You can check Google for reference). See the photo below. The fruits are blurred out! We have better pics farther below.

Here is Solanum torvum.

It has many different names like Thai eggplant, Turkey berry, Devil’s fig, Pea eggplant, Platebrush, Prickly nightshade, Shoo-shoo bush, and so many more depending on where you are in the world!

Here’s a much better image of the vegetable itself. We took this photo yesterday!

Ingredients for Making the Paste

• Guinea Peppers – 15 whole (or any kind you can find).
• Salt – 1/2 tsp.
• Lemongrass – 1 tbsp., sliced.
• Galangal – 1 tsp., minced.
• Galingale – 1 tbsp., roughly cut.
• Red Onion – 3 tbsp., cut.
• Basil Flower – 1 tsp.
• Shrimp Paste – 1 tsp.

Grind all of these ingredients together to make the paste for the Thai chicken recipe.

Directions to Make Thai Spicy Chicken Soup

1. Add 3 cups of water or stock in the pot and turn on the fire. Use medium heat to boil it. Add the paste and then wait until it is boiling.
2. Add chicken. I looked up on my dictionary it’s called this type of chicken domestic flows. The chicken meat is quite rough and more difficult to chew.
   If you can’t find this type please don’t worry. 🙂 Just add whatever you have, beef or pork will be fine.
3. Cook the meat for 10 minutes.
4. Add pumpkin and cook for 10 more minutes.
5. Now, add wing bean, eggplant, fish sauce, sugar, peppercorn, galingale, sweet pepper, and basil.
6. Keep adding fish sauce until it tastes perfect. I can’t tell you the right amount because you may like it more or less salty.
7. Serve with hot jasmine rice or rice noodle.
   I sneaked into Aunt Aun Kitchen and a restaurant near my workplace again for lunch. This time I have no shame at all asking them what is that, what is this 🙂
8. What is that, what is this until I know what I want to know !! See how I risked my life?
9. And I got this recipe! Haha I would love to show you the picture but I don’t have a camera with me anymore. Sorry.. the photo from my phone is horrible and I don’t want to show it.
10. Anyway, this is my first time eating this food and I like it. It’s so spicy! You can smell galingale from the soup. Hmm, I still have half of the soup waiting for me to come back and finish it. 🙂 Thank you for visiting my blog!

(^v^)/ Joy, Enjoy Cooking!