Stuffed Cucumber Clear Soup

Gang-Jeud Tang-Gwar Moo-Sub

The temperature here in NYC has dropped suddenly - It' s cold, wet and windy - we even got snow....in OCtober! You are bit early Mr. Snow.

It makes me needed something to comforting my belly, and the clear soup with light taste like this stuffed cucumber with shittake mushroom is the best.

As we know, eating Thai way is that we have a few dishes at once on the table, and we eat them all together - each dish has its own distinctive taste, and will complement each other, and that all the tastes will be balanced.

This soup is one of a perfect soup to tone down some spicy dishes like this dish or some curries.

Preparing the cucumber.
Choose one good size cucumber, clean it, cut into small cylinders, scoop out all the seed and peel off the green skin

Marinate the pork stuffing.
- 1 cup ground pork (You can use ground shrimp if you like)
- 1 tbsp. of herbal marinade paste
- 1 tbsp. soy sauce
- 1 tsp. sugar
- 1 tbsp. corn starch

Mix all ingredients well, and let it marinaded for 10 minutes then stuff the cylinder cucumbers with the marinaded ground pork.

Making the clear soup.
- 2 cup water or stock
- soy sauce
- green onion, cut into 1 inch long
- shiitake mushroom

1. On high heat, bring water to full boil.
2. Turn the heat down to medium heat, carefully put stuffed cucumbers into the pot, add shiitake mushroom.
3. Cover a pot with a lid for three minutes.
4. Start seasoning with soy sauce, put the lid on - leave it ajar- for three more minutes.
5. Taste, and adjust the taste. Use a small fork to check if the pork stuffing is cooked through.
6. Add green onion, and turn off the heat.
7. Serve....in a serving bowl, add a small spoon of garlic oil, and sprinkle with powder pepper.