Kaeng som kai wan - Sweet & sour chicken soup

This is a variant of kaeng som, which is a popular fish soup that is quite common in  
Thailand. Keang som is quite sour, and this dish has been given a degree of sweetness  
in keeping with making it from chicken. 

If you can't find krachai (lesser ginger) then use ordinary ginger.ingredients

about one and a half pounds of chicken, skinned, filleted, and cut into bite sized  
pieces. 

4 cups of chicken stock 
3 tablespoons of sesame oil 
1 tablespoon ginger, freshly ground 

3 tablespoons of chopped garlic 
3 tablespoons of chopped shallots 
3 tablespoons krachai (lesser ginger), thinly sliced 
3 tablespoons of mixed red and green prik chi fa (jalapenos), thinly 
sliced or julienned. 
1 teaspoon kapi (shrimp paste) 
a quarter of a cup of fish sauce 
a quarter of a cup of tamarind juice 
1-2 tablespoons of palm sugar (to taste) 
2 cups of very coarsely chopped green vegetables 
1 cup of pineapple chunks (preferably fresh, not tinned)

method

prepare the chicken and then add three tabelspoons of sesame oil and one  
tablespoon of freshly ground ginger, mix, and leave to marinade for one hour. 

Heat a wok, and then stir fry the chicken in the marinade until it just starts to  
change colour. 

Heat the stock to simmering point, and add all the ingredients except 
the chicken and pineapple, and return it to the boil. 

Add the chicken, and the marinade and simmer until the chicken is cooked  
through. Add the pineapple, bring to the boil and then serve. 

-- 

This dish can be eaten as a soup course, but as I have remarked before 
in Thailand soups are normally eaten with the other dishes of the 
dinner, rather than before them. Therefore you should use a slotted 
spoon to remove the chicken and serve it in individual bowls to the diners, 
the soup liquor is then placed in a large serving bowl, from where they 
can help themselves (you can use a fire pot or fondue cooker to keep it 
hot if you wish). 

note that this can also be prepared as a stir fry still dish (whence it 
becomes pad som kai wan) by simply omitting the chicken stock. (If it is 
a little dry, then add a couple of tablespoons of stock to the wok).