Po Taek (โป๊ะแตก)

The Soup That Out-Tom-Yums Tom Yum

The name is the story. Wongnai's food desk explains it: a โป๊ะ (poh) is the wooden box-trap fishermen moor off the shore — and แตก means broken. When the trap gives way, everything inside it spills out at once into the pot. The dish, then, is the whole catch in one pot: prawns, fish, mussels, squid, crab if the trap was kind.

Everyone who writes about po-taek in Thai starts from the same comparison: it is tom yum's clear, louder cousin. Kapook's recipe — a Pantip home cook's — is blunt about the difference. In po-taek the aromatics are pounded, chillies and lemongrass and shallots broken up in the mortar, where tom yum leaves its herbs whole and slices them politely. That pounding is the whole point: Kapook says the broth comes out smelling of crushed lemongrass and chilli in a way plain tom yum never does. And the second signature: holy basil (ใบกะเพรา), a handful into the pot right at the end.

The recipe is a folk recipe, so the schools differ on details — fingerroot here, dried chillies there, a stock cube or none — but the skeleton never moves: clear broth, pounded aromatics, mixed seafood, lime at the last second, holy basil on top.

The Recipe (home version, from Kapook / Aroifin / Wongnai)

The Wongnai pot: 2 cups water, 5 galangal slices, 1 stalk lemongrass, 5 kaffir leaves, 1 tbsp seasoning powder, 2 coriander roots and 5 red spur chillies for the broth — over 100 g NZ mussels, 80 g sea bass, 80 g squid, 80 g prawns and 30 g straw mushrooms, seasoned with 2 tbsp fish sauce, 3 tbsp lime juice and 1 tbsp sugar. The Knorr pot: 2½ cups water, two tom yum stock cubes, 100 g grouper, 50 g each of prawns, squid and mussel meat, 100 g straw mushrooms, five bruised bird's eye chillies. The Cookpad pot: 300 g prawns, 300 g squid, 200 g straw mushrooms, dried and fresh chillies, a stock cube and a pinch of coconut sugar — seafood blanched first, holy basil at the end. The Kapook pot: prawns, fish, crab and squid, the squid held back until last, seasoned with nothing but salt or fish sauce and lime.

The Method

1. The pound. Bruise and roughly pound the chillies, shallots, lemongrass and coriander roots in a mortar — coarse, not a paste. Kapook is explicit: never grind it fine like a curry paste. This is the step that separates po-taek from tom yum.
2. The broth. Bring the water to the boil, add the pounded aromatics with the galangal and kaffir lime leaves, and simmer until the kitchen smells of lemongrass and chilli. If you are a Knorr or Cookpad household, the stock cube goes in now; the old-style pots skip it.
3. The seafood, in order. Fish and mussels first, then the prawns, and the squid last of all — Kapook's rule, because squid overcooks in minutes. Everything goes in the same simmering broth; there is no long cooking here.
4. The season. Add the straw mushrooms, then fish sauce and a little sugar. Sour leads, salty follows, heat comes up behind — Kapook's order of taste: เปรี้ยวนำ เค็มน้อย ๆ เผ็ดตามมา.
5. The finish, off the heat. Pull the pot off the flame, stir in the lime juice — Aroifin warns that lime added to a rolling boil loses its sharpness and its scent — then drop in the holy basil. Ladle into a hot pot and serve with rice.

Where Thai Sources Disagree

How Western Versions Get It Wrong

• Making it creamy. Po-taek is a clear soup (น้ำใส) — Wongnai's explainer is explicit that the dish is tom yum in its clear form. Coconut milk, cream or evaporated milk turns it into tom yum nam khon, a different dish with a different name.
• Ready-made tom yum paste. The aromatics must be pounded coarse, not ground to a paste — Kapook says the whole point is the rough crush that floods the broth with lemongrass and chilli. A jar of fine-ground paste makes a generic hot-and-sour soup.
• The wrong basil. The herb is holy basil, ใบกะเพรา, specifically — its peppery, clove-like scent is the signature finish. Sweet basil or supermarket Thai basil changes the soup's whole aroma; a Cookpad commenter singles out the holy basil at the end as the best part.
• The long simmer. This is a fast soup: seafood goes in by order of cooking time and the pot comes off the flame in minutes. A western seafood stew habit — simmer until everything is done — turns the squid to rubber.
• Lime in the boil. Aroifin's rule, and the fastest way to a flat broth: lime juice goes in off the heat, with the basil.

UK Ingredient Notes

• Holy basil (ใบกะเพรา): fresh bunches at Thai grocers, usually near the kaffir lime leaves; Thai basil (โหระพา) is the nearest stand-in — supermarket sweet basil is not.
• Galangal, kaffir lime leaves, lemongrass and coriander roots: fresh or frozen at Thai grocers and Asian supermarkets; frozen lemongrass and kaffir work perfectly here.
• Mussels: NZ green-lipped frozen (the Wongnai pot) or fresh British mussels from any fish counter — both fine.
• Sea bass: a standard UK fish counter fish; any firm white fish works, and grouper if you are following Knorr.
• Straw mushrooms (เห็ดฟาง): tinned at Thai grocers — the usual home choice — or swap in oyster mushrooms.
• Bird's eye chillies: sold loose or in punnets at Thai and Asian grocers; red spur chillies (พริกชี้ฟ้า) from the same shelf if you want Wongnai's milder heat.
• Fingerroot (กระชาย), if you follow Aroifin: fresh at Thai grocers, sometimes labelled "Chinese keys".

Sources

This recipe is translated from the following Thai-language sources. Where they disagree, we've said so.