Tom Yum Talay - Hot and Sour Seafood Soup

Ingredients:

Tom Yum paste
Button mushrooms (quite big, preferably about an inch in diameter)
Coriander (or "cilantro" as you wacky Americans call it)
Prawns (I used 5 huge uncooked king prawns)
Mussels (200g in the shells, wash them and rinse them and take off their weird beard things)
Lemon juice
Fish sauce

Here are the mussels:

Step 1:

The prawns:

Step 2:

The mushrooms before slicing them into quarters:

Step 3:

Mushrooms sliced into quarters:

Step 4:

Take a litre of water, put it in a saucepan, and bring it to the boil. Then, add 4 or 5 teaspoons of soup paste, and stir it in. The water should turn red, and a little oily, like you see in this picture:

Okay, that's not a very good photo, but you'll get a more accurate idea of what it should like from upcoming photos. Anyway, if the soup tastes spicy enough for your liking, that's good. If it's not spicy enough, add the paste a teaspoon at a time until you're happy.

Step 5:

Once you've done that, add a little bit of lemon juice.

Step 6:

And and a little bit of fish sauce. It's said that fish sauce is "the salt of Southeast Asia", so treat fish sauce with caution. You want to make sure that you add enough to bring out the flavour, but you don't want to ruin your food.

Step 7:

Once you've done that, add a bunch of coriander...

Step 8:

...and the mushrooms...

Step 9:

Leave it for a little, then add the prawns and mussels. Let it cook for a couple minutes on a low heat. The mussels and prawns should be done by now. Here is a picture of a big, delicious prawn.

Step 10:

Anyway, check the soup to see if you like it. Add lemon juice and fish sauce to taste, and you're DONE!