Tom Yum Poached Chilean Sea bass

This is one of the ways I have combined one of my favorite soups (Tom Yum) with one of my favorite fish (Chilean Sea Bass) The concept is pretty simple - first you make the soup and then you slowly poach the fish until it's cooked through. Because I was making three dishes at the time I was making this one, I opted to make a very quick Tom Yum soup with easy ingredients.

Ingredients:

Chilean Sea Bass (4 ounce cut)
1 stalk lemongrass
2 inch piece of galangal thinly sliced
1 quart chick stock
4-6 kaffir lime leaves
4-6 Thai chili peppers (roughly chopped) or 2 tablespoon Nam Prik Pao (Thai chili paste consisting of fried garlic, shallots, chili peppers, and shrimp paste)
2-3 tablespoon tamarind powder
1 tablespoon kosher salt
3-5 tablespoon fish sauce
1 can straw mushrooms
3-4 Roma tomatoes (quartered)


Directions:

Add chicken stock, lemongrass, galangal and kaffir lime leaves in stock pot on high heat and bring to a boil. Once the ingredients have come to a boil, reduce the heat down to medium low and add salt, tamarind powder, chili peppers or nam prik pao, fish sauce, tomatoes and mushrooms. Adjust the tartness by adding or reducing the amount of tamarind powder. You can also adjust the spiciness by adding or reducing the chili peppers or nam prik pao. I suggest that you add half the amount listed above for both ingredients first and then add more later to please your palette.

This is the base of all Tom Yum soups, so if you decide to add shrimp, chicken, tofu, etc. this is the time to add it. Your final step is to reduce the soup down to a simmer and place the fish in the soup. Depending on the size of the fish it shouldn't take longer then 6-10 minutes for the fish to fully cook in the soup.