Thai coconut soup with crab

Delicious!!! Today kicks off a series of Christmas dishes! They will appear on my blog in random order over the next few weeks, so mix and match as you go. Preparation time for most dishes is not very long and you can make many things at your leisure . Cozy up during the day after a good winter walk: MY KINDA CHRISTMAS!

At Christmas we are of the traditions, which means we eat the same thing almost every year. I take care of the appetizers, which do change every year. Nothing like thinking about what to make weeks before Christmas. The soup my grandmother of 90 years makes and that is invariably an oxtail broth. She spends two days making it and I don't know if it's the nostalgia or Grandma's cooking skills, but this soup is insanely delicious. For the main course we traditionally eat turkey. We spend hours and hours roasting it in the oven, because some traditions have to be kept.

Oxtail broth may be giving way to this soup for the first time this year, now that Grandma is a little less keen on the hassle of being in the kitchen two days before Christmas anyway.

Tip: make a nice double portion of the soup, you can enjoy it deliciously even after Christmas. Taste only gets better, store it for up to three days.

For this dish you will need a small plug. Available for example at the Hema, Bijenkorf or cooking store.

Ingredients

For 4 persons

2 cans of coconut milk (400 ml)
200 ml of water
1 vegetable stock cube
1 tablespoon of fish sauce
good piece of ginger
1 red pepper
1 stalk of lemongrass (sereh)
4 kaffir leaves
1 lime
200 grams of crab sticks (get real crab if money is no object :-))
200 grams of edamame beans (shelled - these are available ready frozen at the toko) Keep some aside for garnish.
1 tablespoon of fish sauce (I used the crab variety here - again, you'll have to go to the toko for this)
can of real crab legs (if you like and enjoy using the legs)
bunch of coriander
1 stalk of spring onion

How to

Put the cans of coconut milk along with the water and stock cube in a saucepan and let warm over low heat.
Cut the peel off the ginger and cut into coarse pieces.
Wash the red pepper and roughly chop it as well.
Wash the lemongrass and cut it in half and bruise it. Add all this to the soup along with the kaffir leaves. Let simmer along with it.
Grate the zest of the lime after you wash it and squeeze out the juice. Add this also along with the fish sauce. Let it simmer for a while. If you put the soup in the refrigerator after this or outside, the flavors will soak up wonderfully well after overnight.
On the day you make the crab mixture. Of course, we all know that surimi is not real crab, but to keep it all a little fun budget-wise you use surimi for the base here. Put this in a food processor along with the (thawed) edamame beans and cilantro and chop it finely. Now add in the fish sauce and stir for a moment. You can also make this ahead of time and keep it in the refrigerator for a few hours.
Cut the spring onion into as thin long ribbons as possible and blanch them. (Blanching= cook very briefly and rinse with very cold water)
Just before serving, drain and heat the soup. Place a skewer in a soup plate and put some of the crab mixture in here. Press this down well.
Taste the soup, should it be a little saltier? Then add some more fish sauce, you may want to add some fresh black pepper or some lime juice.
Pour some of the soup around the crab mixture.
Now you can start garnishing the soup with the spring onion, edamame and possibly (for fancier dining) real crab legs.