A waterfront apartment can still do a sour soup and a basil stir-fry if you shop once and cook in order. You do not need a wok. You need a saucepan, a heavy frypan, rice, and a bag that includes lime, fish sauce, and something herbal. These recipes are for visitors cooking in and for people whose kitchen window faces NewQuay wind. They do not copy the Carlton noodle salad or the Grid pepper pork. The unique complete recipe here is a saucepan tom yum with mushrooms and prawns (or tofu), built so a compact kitchen can finish it without a stockpot.
Shop before you arrive at the precinct if you can. Docklands grocers are thinner than Footscray. A Grid or Richmond bag on the way in is a kinder plan than hoping the convenience shelf has galangal.
Shop once
- jasmine rice
- fish sauce, limes, a small chilli packet
- garlic, coriander
- mushrooms (oyster if you can, white cup if you cannot)
- prawns, or extra mushrooms and tofu
- lemongrass if it looks fresh; a tube of lemongrass paste only as a last resort
- makrut lime leaves from a freezer packet
- stock: chicken or vegetable, or a cube you will not worship
- optional: a handful of cherry tomatoes, a tin of straw mushrooms
Holy basil for a frypan krapow can wait for a second shop. Soup is the Docklands dish because the wind makes a hot bowl feel like a decision. Read the Docklands hub if you are eating out instead; read the tasting notes so your own soup is sour rather than held.
Saucepan tom yum with mushrooms and prawns
Serves two as a main with rice, or four as a soup before a frypan stir-fry. It should taste hot, sour and aromatic — not creamy unless you choose the tom yum nam khon path by adding a spoon of evaporated milk or coconut milk at the end, which is a valid variant and should be a choice, not an accident.
Ingredients
- 750ml water or light chicken stock
- 2 lemongrass stalks, top third only, bruised and cut into lengths
- 6 makrut lime leaves, torn
- 4 thin slices galangal, if you have it (ginger is a poor cousin; use it only if you must, and use less)
- 2–4 bird’s eye chillies, bruised
- 200g mushrooms, torn
- 150g peeled prawns, or 200g firm tofu cubes
- 8 cherry tomatoes, halved, optional
- 2–3 tablespoons fish sauce
- 2–3 tablespoons lime juice
- 1 teaspoon chilli paste in oil (nam prik pao), optional but excellent
- A handful of coriander
- Jasmine rice, to serve
Method
Bring the water or stock to a boil with lemongrass, lime leaves, galangal and bruised chillies. Simmer 5 minutes so the aromatics infuse. Add mushrooms (and tofu if using) and simmer until the mushrooms are tender. Add prawns and tomatoes; cook only until the prawns turn pink, 2–3 minutes. Take the pan off the heat. Add fish sauce, lime juice and nam prik pao. Taste. It should make you blink: sour, salty, hot, aromatic. Add more lime or fish sauce until it does. You cannot get that from boiling the lime juice for ten minutes — acid goes dull.
Fish out the woody lemongrass if you like, or warn the table. Serve in bowls with coriander and rice on the side. People spoon rice into the soup or soup onto rice; both are correct.
Notes
No prawns: mushrooms plus tofu is a complete soup. Vegetarian fish sauce or extra salt plus lime will season it; shrimp paste is not required here. No lime leaves: the soup will be poorer; zest of a lime is not the same but will do in a hotel apartment. Nam prik pao adds smoke and sweetness; skip it rather than substituting ketchup.
Do not simmer the finished soup on the stove while you wait for guests to walk the promenade. Tom yum waits badly, which is also the restaurant tell on event nights. Reheat the aromatic broth, then add prawns and lime when people are at the table.
If you need a second dish, fry garlic and mince in the heavy frypan using the krapow method on the main recipes page, even if supermarket basil is the only basil you found. Two dishes, lots of rice, a window closed against the wind: that is a Docklands banquet for four without a booking we cannot make.
Hotel-apartment notes: a blunt knife still bruises lemongrass if you smash it with a mug. Lime leaves from a freezer packet should be torn, not sliced into sad threads. If you only have ginger, make a sour soup and do not call it tom yum on the whiteboard on the fridge. Names matter at home too. Stock cubes are allowed if lime, fish sauce and a leaf do the finishing. What is not allowed is simmering the finished soup while people walk NewQuay; prawns go tight and lime goes dull, which is the same tell as an event-night restaurant urn.
A visitor with one night in Docklands should shop in the Grid on the way in: lime, fish sauce if the apartment has none, mushrooms, coriander, rice. That bag is more useful than a second waterfront booking we will not recommend. Cook, close the window, eat the soup while it is soup.