My favorite Thai soup, I think, is Tom Sap a sour/spicy/savory dish with loads of fresh herbs mushrooms tomatos and pork ribs.
For the this meal you're gonna need a pot for boiling; I use our larger rice cooker for this, and a pan for browning the pork; electric wok and my kitchen is full. and a good supply of "ingredients"
The amounts kinda vary with the size of your pot and appetite so I'm gonna give ya'll pictures with a commentary so you make your own porportions up as we go.
you will need:
Plenty of clean water for the soup base
6 - 12 baby pork ribs trimmed and searated.
a chunk of Kha (galangal)
three - four stalks of lemon grass
a few cloves a gralic (I like Gratiem Ton it just melts away to flavor in the pot)
a handfull of Kaffir Lime leaves (Bai Magroot)
a large handful of Thai Chillies (in order to be good, this dish must be spicey and sour)
a bunch of fresh Horapa (Sweet basil)
Coriander leaves ( Pak Chee, Cilantro)
about 6 - 10 frsh plum tomatoes
a large pile of mushrooms (straw, chantrelles, oysters or plain white; Stay way from the porcinis or Shitakes they just arent as tender for the soup)
anyhere from 4 - 6 limes oughta do it depsnds on your tastes.
a smidgen of that pork soup base in envelopes I use Rot Dii . The soup should be quite tasty and will need just a small amount of this to balance it.
Above is a pic of the stuff you need to start with for the soup base.
Left to right; Kaffir lime leaves, Pak chee Farang (have no idea what it is in english if anything but has stronger flavor identical to Corriander leaf, Kha or Galangal, Lemon grass and above a ew chillies
Oops! forot the Garlic.
Now we'll want to smash up all the heavy stuff and toss it in a cool pot of water.
First start with the garlic slice it in half, peel and smack the shit out of it with the side of cleaver or heavy knife. or used a thin knife and he heel of your hand.
Same goes for the Kha, slice it 3-4 mm thick and smack it a good one or three as well.
lemon grass, smack it first the chop it up.
Now for the Chillies;
lots of cooks just bash 'em with a knife and throw 'em in almost whole. That's for the sissies that gotta take 'em out I like to chop 'em up so they cook away to nothing but F-L-A-V-O-R! proceed as your nature dictates.
There is no such thing as food that is too spicy. this is a good start for the base, we'll be adding more towards the end.
Now, toss it all in a pot of cool water and turn the heat up to boil
I'm gonna let that boil for about an hour or so, gonna run out and pick up a pack of smokes while the flaovors meld when I get back we'll add the pork and a few other things...