What follows is Vilai Yenbamroong's recipe, a variation on the coconut milk-based soup she makes for patrons at Chai's Thai Cuisine in Oxnard, as well as comments from Ventura County Star reporter and amateur chef Lisa McKinnon, who tried the recipe in her home kitchen somewhere in midtown Ventura.

Bottles of fish sauce and canned straw mushrooms and coconut milk are available in the ethnic food aisle at many mainstream grocery stores. More exotic ingredients may be found at specialty shops such as Fuwa Market, 3823 Saviers Road, just a few blocks away from Chai's.

Fuwa Market stocks jars of spicy sauteed shrimp paste (Vilai uses her own homemade shrimp chili paste) as well as packages of dried and presliced galangal, which is related to and looks a lot like ginger.

"I found plastic bags labeled 'dried galingale' in a cooler near the fish counter, between packages of Chinese-style sausages and cuttlefish," said McKinnon. "Vilai uses the fresh version, keeping the slices in a shallow dish of water until she puts them in the pot. Her galangal is flexible when you encounter it in the soup bowl; the dried variety remains pretty stiff and wood-chiplike, even after all that cooking."

Kaffir lime leaves and lemon grass also are occasionally available Fuwa, although not on the day McKinnon visited.

Instead, she found a plastic "clam shell" package of lemon grass, an herb with long pale leaves and a scallionlike base, in the produce section of the Ralph's Grocery Store at 1425 S. Victoria Ave., Ventura. It was packaged by McCormick.

Tracking down kaffir lime leaves -- which are dark green and look like two leaves joined end to end -- proved a real problem until McKinnon visited the dwarf citrus tree department at Green Thumb International, also on Victoria Avenue. There she found and bought a kaffir lime tree for $19.99.

A final note: Use caution when cooking with fish sauce, a salty brown concoction made by filtering off the liquid from fermenting salted fish. A dizzying number of brands is available, some apparently more salty than others.

"I bought and used the Three Crabs Brand, which cost $3.29 for a 24-ounce bottle," McKinnon said. "Following Vilai's directions, I added five tablespoons of the stuff to the soup without stopping to taste in between -- and found results to be so salty as to be nearly inedible.

"I added more lime juice and an extra can each of coconut milk and peeled straw mushrooms to dilute the soup's saltiness this time," McKinnon added. "In the future, I will stop and taste the soup after adding each tablespoon of fish sauce."

Ingredients:

20 ounces chicken stock

1 stem lemon grass, cut on the diagonal into four or five pieces measuring about 1 1/2 to 2 inches each

5 slices fresh or dry galangal, each about 1/4-inch thick

5 fresh kaffir lime leaves

1 cup straw mushrooms

8 ounces uncooked chicken breast or thigh, sliced into pieces

1 to 5 tablespoons fish sauce

1 teaspoon sugar

1 cup coconut milk

2 tablespoons lime juice

1 teaspoon shrimp chili paste

1/2 teaspoon ground chili (optional)

2 tablespoons cilantro leaves and stems, lightly chopped

Instructions:

Place chicken stock in a pot and bring to a boil. Add pieces of lemon grass, galangal and lime leaves and continue boiling for three minutes.

Add straw mushrooms and chicken meat and boil for two minutes.

Add fish sauce by the tablespoon, tasting after each one for saltiness. Add sugar. Wait for soup to reach the boiling point again before adding the coconut milk.

Boil another eight minutes or so to make sure the chicken has cooked through. Turn off heat. Add lime juice and stir in shrimp chili paste. Add the optional ground chili for extra spiciness, if desired. Cilantro may be added while soup is still in the pot. Or, place it on top as a garnish after the soup has been poured into a serving bowl.

Makes four servings.