Hung Khao Buree Tom/หุงข้าวบุหรี่ต้น

Another recipe from Mae Khrua Hua Pa, which the author, Lady Plian, sourced from a prominent Thai royal. The name of this dish is khao buree (ข้าวบุหรี่), which in Thai this means “tobacco rice” or “cigarette rice,” although this is almost certainly the Thai mangling of the word “biryani.” The recipe’s source, Prince Damrong, was a famous Thai historian (among other things), and although Lady Plian doesn’t tell us from where he sourced the recipe, Thailand has a long history of trade with the Middle East and South Asia, and one Thai-Persian family in particular had a huge amount of influence on the current royal line.

The dish is something of a stripped-down biryani, lacking what is nowadays pretty much the defining ingredient of Thai-style biryani, turmeric. Another unusual element is the fact that the spices aren’t ground before being added to the rice. But toasting them in butter makes them easy (and actually kind of pleasant) to crunch through, and results in a really fragrant dish. 

หุงข้าวบุหรี่ต้น

(อย่างพระเจ้าน้องยาเธอ กรมหลวงดำรงราชานุภาพ)

เครื่องปรุง - ข้าวประมาณครึ่งทะนาน เนยฝรั่งอย่างดี ๑ ช้อนโต๊ะ นมสด ๒ กระป๋อง พริกไทย ลูกผักชี ยี่หร่า กระวาน กานพลู เกลือ สิ่งละ ๑ หยิบมือ ใบกระวาน ๒ - ๓ ใบ ไก่ ๑ ตัว

วิธีทำ - เอาข้าวซาวน้ำให้หมดละอองสะอาดดีแล้ว เอาหม้อตั้ง เอาเนยตักเทลงในหม้อพอร้อนแล้วจึงเอาเครื่องเทศเหล่านั้นเทลงไป ผัดจนมีกลิ่นหอม แล้วจึงเอาข้าวที่ชาวไว้เทลงผัดพอทั่ว เอานมเทลงสักกระป๋องครึ่ง น้ำร้อนรินลงพอสมควร เติมลงพอท่วมข้าวขึ้นมาเหนือองคุลี ๑ หุงด้วยเตาน้ำมันปิโตรเลียม พอข้าวนั้นเดือดคนเข้าด้วยกันดีแล้ว ปิดฝาหม้อจนข้าวนั้นเดือดอีก จนเหงื่อตกจากฝาหม้อก็รู้ว่าน้ำแห้ง เปิดหม้อขึ้นคนยงให้ทั่วกัน เอาเนื้อไก่ที่ต้มฉีกไว้คนเคล้าเข้าด้วยกัน ปิดฝาหม้อหมุนราไฟให้อ่อนลงหน่อยจนข้าวนั้นสุกดี ยกไปให้รับประทานร้อนๆ

หมายเหตุ เจ้าของตำรานี้ได้เห็นพระองค์ท่านทรงหุงเอง จึงได้สังเกตไว้แต่จะคลาดเคลื่อนบ้างอย่างไรไม่แน่ได้ การต้นนี้หุงข้าวนี้ ทรงชำนาญเช่นการอื่น ๆ เป็นอย่างเอกจึงได้ลงตำราไว้

Hung Khao Buree Tom/Biryani

(In the style of Prince Damrong Rajanubhab)

Ingredients: 2 cups rice; 1 tablespoon good quality foreign butter; ½ cup tinned milk; ½ teaspoon black peppercorns; ½ teaspoon coriander seeds; ½ teaspoon cumin seeds; 8 Siam cardamom seeds; 8 cloves; 1 teaspoon salt; 4 bay leaves [actually the leaves of Siam cardamom]; 500g chicken [I used boneless thighs, which I poached and shredded ahead of time; retain 2 cups of the poaching liquid/broth]

Directions

Rise the rice. In a pot over a flame, add butter and dried spices, and fry until the spices are fragrant [and until they begin to pop, about 1 minute]. Add rice [that has been rinsed and strained], fry until coated in the butter/spice mixture. [Increase heat] add the milk and enough hot water to cover the rice [I used the 2 cups of broth mentioned above, supplemented with about 1 teaspoon of salt]. When the rice reaches a boil, stir the rice, put the lid on the pot, bring to the boil until liquid drips from the lid of the pot [I let it boil, with the lid on, for maybe 1 minute]. Open the pot, add the shredded chicken and stir to combine. Return the lid, reduce heat and simmer until the rice is cooked [I let it simmer at the lowest heat possible for exactly 20 minutes]. Remove from heat and serve while still hot [I let the rice rest for 10 minutes before opening the lid].

Note: I witnessed the prince cook this dish myself, but some elements may be incorrect. As in other things, the prince was talented at cooking rice this way, so I decided to record it.

Plaa Raa Lon/ปลาร้าหลน

Another recipe from Mae Khrua Hua Pa (แม่ครัวหัวป่าก์), said to be Thailand’s first cookbook. According to the author, Lady Plian, this recipe comes from Queen Savang Vadhana, born in Bangkok’s Grand Palace in 1862, and the great-grandmother of Thailand’s current king. The dish is a lon/หลน, a Thai dip or relish that combines coconut milk, something salty and herbs. The salty element in this version is plaa raa/ปลาร้า, unfiltered, unpasteurized, fermented fish, an ingredient one wouldn’t necessarily associate with royalty. But it actually serves as the perfect salty, funky counterpart to the rich coconut cream. This recipe includes a lot of kaffir lime – the zest, leaves and juice – giving it lots of fragrance, and honey, an ingredient one doesn’t see too often in Thai cooking. 

ปลาร้าหลน

(อย่างสมเด็จพระพันวรรษา)

เครื่องปรุง – ข่าหนัก ๑ บาท ตะไคร้หันละเอียด หนัก ๓ บาท ผิวมะกรูดหนัก ๑ เฟื้อง หอมหนัก ๗ บาท ปลาร้าพอสมควร น้ำผึ้งนิดหน่อย น้ำตาลปีบนิดหน่อย พริกชี้ฟ้า ๑๖ เม็ด น้ำมะกรูดพอสมหัวกะทิพอสมควร ผิวมะกรูดโรยหน้าหนัก ๒ ไพ

วิธีทำ – เอาหอม ข่า ตะไคร้ ผิวมะกรูดที่ชั่งไว้ ทำให้เข้ากัน จึงเอาปลาร้าต้มให้ละเอียดจนกระดูกอ่อนกรองก้างกากออกให้หมด คั้นกะทิเอาแต่ หัวตั้งไฟช้อนหัวกะทิไว้โรยหน้า จึงเอาปลาร้าที่ต้มและตะไคร้ที่ตำไว้ผสมลงในกะทิเดี๋ยวไปจนข้น จึงเอาน้ำผึ้งและน้ำตาลปีบ พริกชี้ฟ้า ผิวมะกรูด น้ำมะกรูดเทลง ชิมดูจืดเค็มตามชอบตกลงถ้วย เอาหัวกะทิที่ตักไว้หยอดลงไปและใบมะกรูดหั่นฝอยโรยหน้าปิดฝายกไปตั้งให้รับประทาน

Plaa Raa Lon [A Savory Dip with Fermented Fish]

(As made by Queen Savang Vadhana)

Ingredients: 15g galangal [peeled and sliced thinly]; 70g lemongrass [whole stalks; exterior layer peeled, pale inner part sliced thinly]; 1 teaspoon [minced] kaffir lime zest; 75g shallots [peeled and sliced thinly]; 250g unfiltered fermented fish [plaa raa; including both liquid and whole fish]; a little bit of honey [I used 2 teaspoons]; a little bit of palm sugar [I used 20g]; 60g large fresh chilies [called phrik chii faa in Thai; sliced in sections about ½ cm wide]; an appropriate amount of kaffir lime juice [I used the juice of one lime] mixed with coconut cream; kaffir lime zest for garnish [a typo, I think; this should say kaffir lime leaves, perhaps 4, sliced very thinly]

Directions: Pound shallots, galangal, lemongrass and [half of the] kaffir lime zest with a mortar and pestle. Boil the fermented fish until the bones are soft [this took about 5 minutes], strain and discard the bones. Put the coconut cream [3 cups] over a flame [and bring to a boil], removing a spoonful for the garnish. Add the boiled fermented fish [5 tablespoons] and the pounded lemongrass mixture, and simmer until reduced [I let it simmer for approximately 15 minutes, until it was reduced by about a third]. Add the honey, palm sugar, chilies, [remaining] kaffir lime zest and kaffir lime juice. Taste and adjust seasoning, if needed [I let the mixture simmer another 5 minutes or so at this point – you want the final consistency to be thick enough to just barely coat a spoon or a vegetable]. Garnish with a drizzle of the reserved coconut cream and the kaffir lime leaves, serve [warm or at room temperature, not hot].

Kaeng Nuea Wua/แกงเนื้อวัว

As a guy who writes Thai cookbooks, I’m not supposed to say this, but cooking Thai food can be kind of a pain in the ass. Making a curry paste from scratch requires a zillion ingredients that, if you live alone like I do, inevitably leads to waste. The process is time consuming, messy and fiddly. And on a personal level, I tend to associate cooking Thai food with work, and having lived in Thailand more than 20 years now, these days I take a lot of pleasure in cooking and eating non-Thai food.

But with some time on my hands (and perhaps also a desire to keep my skills sharp), I thought I’d dip back into Thai cooking. And my first instinct was to try something I’ve long wanted to do: Cook a dish from Mae Khrua Hua Pa (แม่ครัวหัวป่าก์). Written by Thanphuying Plian Phassakorawongse (Lady Plian from here out), a noble in Bangkok during the beginning of the 20th century, it’s generally considered the first Thai cookbook. The culinary world described in it is utterly fascinating – cooking techniques, dishes and combinations of ingredients that have long disappeared from Thailand (the instructions to cook long-grained rice alone span eight steps and involves kitchen tools most contemporary Thais have probably never even heard of). But the recipes are often unclear and/or vague, with ingredient amounts non-existent or seemingly arbitrary. And as many of these dishes haven’t been made in a century, we have no idea, really, how they should taste or smell or look or feel. Simply put, cooking from this book is a challenge, as it requires some background and familiarity with Thai cooking (and Thai language skills; I don’t think it’s been translated into English). Which means that any dish cooked from the book is equal parts Lady Plian’s and the cook’s. I like this; it’s cooking that involves both a sense of history and creativity.

I’m a fan of rich, pleasantly oily dishes, so I started with this recipe, simply titled Kaeng Nuea Wua (แกงเนื้อวัว), Beef Curry, from the first book of the series (there are a total of five). I’ve included the original Thai here, and the English translation has my amounts, and my comments in brackets. Warning, it makes a lot – probably enough for six people – but I suspect that it keeps well.

แกงเนื้อวัว

เป็นเครื่องปรุง – พริกแห้ง หนัก ๓ บาท ตะไคร้หนัก ๑ สลึง ข่าหนัก ๑ ไพ กระเทียมหนัก ๒ บาท หัวหอมหนัก ๑ บาท รากผักชีหนักสลึงเฟื่อง พริกไทยหนัก ๑ สลึง ลูกผักชีหนัก ๑ เฟื้อง ลูกยี่หร่าหนัก ๒ ไพ จันเทศหนัก ๒ ไพ เกลือหนัก ๒ สลึง เยื่อเคยหนัก ๑ สลึง ผิวมะกรูดหนัก ๑ ไพ ของเหล่านี้ล้างน้ำอย่าให้เปื้อนแล้วเทลงครกโขลกให้ละเอียด น้ำปลาดี น้ำตาลหม้อพอควร เนื้อวัวเอาแต่เนื้อมานั่นเป็นชิ้นบางๆ ล้างน้ำให้สะอาดคั้นน้ำให้สะเด็ด พักไว้ก่อนและห่อใบมะละกอไว้

วิธีทำ - เอาหม้อตั้งไฟขึ้นเอาน้ำมันหมูหนัก ๒ สลึงเทลงในหม้อ แล้วเอากระเทียมทุบกลีบแกะเอาแต่เนื้อโรยลงในหม้อผัดไปกับน้ำมันหมูให้หอม แล้วเอาเนื้อวัวที่บิดไว้รวนลงในหม้อแกงผัดไปให้แห้งน้ำรวนเนื้อแล้วตักขึ้น เอามะพร้าวมาขูดคั้นหัวกะทิหนัก ๔๐ บาท เทลงในหม้อขึ้นเคี่ยวจนเดือดคนไปให้แตกมันแล้วเอาหางกะทิละลายพริกขิงแต่พอข้นๆ ตักหยอด ลงในหม้อกะทิแล้วผัดพริกขิงไปให้ทั่ว จึงเอาเนื้อวัวที่รวนไว้ลงคนไปปิดฝา ให้เดือดแล้วเอาน้ำหางกะทิล้างครกพริกขิงหนัก ๑๒ บาท เทลงในหม้อแกงแล้ว เอาน้ำปลาดีหนัก ๒ สลึงเหยาะลงในหม้อ น้ำตาลเดาะลงแต่นิดหน่อ อย่าให้หวานนักเมื่อจืดเต็มชิมดูตามชอบแล้วตกลงชามไปตั้งให้รับประทาน

Beef Curry

15g [large] dried chilies [chopped coarsely]; 70g lemongrass [whole stalks; exterior layer discarded, pale inner part sliced thinly]; 40g galangal [peeled and sliced thinly]; 60g garlic [small cloves; discard coarse exterior and stalk but no need to peel]; 25g shallots [peeled and sliced thinly]; 4 coriander roots [chopped]; 1 teaspoon black peppercorns; 1 teaspoon coriander seeds [toasted until fragrant]; 1 teaspoon cumin seeds [toasted until fragrant]; [about] ⅛ teaspoon nutmeg; ½ teaspoon salt; 1½ tablespoons shrimp paste; 1 teaspoon [chopped] kaffir lime zest; wash these ingredients and pound to a fine paste with a mortar and pestle [traditionally, Thais would start with the dry ingredients moving toward the “wet” ones, going in this approximate order: salt, chili, dried spices, lemongrass, galangal, coriander roots, garlic, shallots, kaffir lime zest, shrimp paste]; good quality fish sauce; an appropriate amount of palm sugar; 500g lean beef, sliced thinly, washed, dried, and wrapped in the leaf of a papaya tree

Directions

To a pot over a flame [high], add 2 tablespoons of lard. To the lard, add garlic [I used four big cloves, about 15g] that has been peeled and crushed, and fry until fragrant. Add beef, sear, fry until any moisture has evaporated, and remove. Add 4 cups of coconut cream and stir [occasionally] until the cream reaches a boil and a layer of oil rises to the top [it took about 15 minutes of rapid boiling before the oil even began to separate]. Combine 1 cup of coconut milk with the curry paste, add to the pot and fry [I allowed this mixture to boil rapidly and reduce for another 10 minutes or so, at which point it was mellow, and fragrant, and the oil rose to the top]. Add the beef and 1 cup of coconut milk, and put a lid on the pot. When the mixture reaches a boil, add 4 teaspoons of fish sauce [or to taste] and a bit of sugar [I added about 40g of palm sugar], but don’t season too sweet. Taste and adjust the seasoning to your preference. Remove from the heat and eat.

Market Day at Ban Huay Kon

Like many rural villages in northern Thailand, Ban Huay Kon, located at the northernmost tip of Nan Province, just across the border with Laos, hosts a traveling market a couple days a week. Arrive on market day before 8am, and it is, frankly, a pretty unexceptional affair: itinerant Thai vendors selling the type of utilitarian wares – knives, underwear, towels, seeds, pesticide sprayers, factory-farmed meat and fish – found at similar markets across the country. Yet come 8am, immediately after the Thai national anthem has been broadcast through loudspeakers, the border opens, releasing a small flood of Lao women. Wearing long, hand-woven skirts and flip-flops, straining under bent bamboo poles supporting bags of goods and yet somehow still running, they’re bound for Thailand. As soon as they reach the designated market area, they throw down a plastic sheet, unload their bags and open shop. Crowds of Thai shoppers and gawkers follow on their heels, and in many cases, before the vendors have even unpacked, they’ve have already had a peek into their bags or have unwrapped their banana leaf packages to see what’s inside.

The Thais drive all the way to Ban Huay Kon’s market for edible items from the woods of Laos – the kind of stuff that nowadays is hard to find in Nan, where so much of the forest has been lost. These include wild delicacies such as insect larvae, betel nut, dried frogs, mushrooms, tiny freshwater fish, edible roots and river weed. Others have come for the type of rustic, handmade items that have largely been relegated to nostalgia or antiques in Thailand: wood sticky rice steamers, hand-woven cloth, chunky silver jewelry, baskets and toys made from bamboo. And while all these wares come from Laos, in an oblique way, they serve as a window into a Thailand that, only a few decades ago, used to exist.

Qai Xyaw Qhiav

“It’s an old dish,” said Chai Kamnoetmongkhon, of eggs fried with ginger, a combination I’d never heard of, much less considered, until I visited the Hmong village of Ban Maneephruek, in Nan. “Old people still like to eat it but younger people don’t even know about it.”

Yet the joining of these two disparate ingredients struck me as something novel, not to mention a great example of the dead simple yet satisfying combinations of ingredients that the Hmong and other of Thailand’s so-called ‘hill tribes’ excel at.

Qai Xyaw Qhiav

Eggs fried with ginger

Serves 4

Ingredients

1 small piece ginger (approximately 80 grams), peeled and sliced

2 teaspoons vegetable oil

scant ½ teaspoon salt

4 eggs

Thai Kitchen Tools

granite mortar and pestle

medium (approximately 12-inch) wok

Procedure

To a mortar and pestle, add the ginger. Pound until it has a consistency just short of a rough paste. Remove and mince finely.

            To a small bowl, crack the eggs. Beat to combine and set aside.

            To a wok over medium-high heat, add the oil, salt and ginger. Fry the ginger, stirring frequently, until fragrant but not yet brown, about 1 minute. Add the eggs, allowing them to set somewhat before stirring once or twice (the dish should a consistency somewhere between scrambled eggs and an omelet) until completely cooked through, about 1 or 2 more minutes.

            Remove to a serving dish and serve the eggs hot, with long-grained rice, as part of a Hmong meal.

Zaub Kua Roj/Kaeng Faa Phaa

When I prodded the residents of Ban Maneephruek for an example of a classic Hmong dish, the answer was inevitably kaeng faa pha, ‘lightning soup’, known in Hmong as zaub kua roj.

            “It’s called lightning soup because, when you pour the water in the hot oil, sometimes you get flames,” explains Chai Kamnoetmongkhon, a Hmong and native of the village.   

            To be fair, the flashy name and cooking technique are covers for what is perhaps the simplest dish I uncovered in northern Thailand: a bare-bones soup of vegetables seasoned with a bit of oil and salt.

Chai explains that kaeng faa phaa can be made with just about any vegetable, typically greens such as chayote leaves or yu choy, but the version that stands out in my mind is one made with cubes of ripe kabocha squash, sometimes known as Japanese pumpkin. The soup, which was served as part of breakfast by Chai’s neighbors, was given a subtle herb kick by the addition of a stalk of lemongrass, and as is the case with many Hmong dishes, was accompanied by an optional spicy chili condiment.

Zaub Kua Roj/Kaeng Faa Phaa

แกงฟ้าผ่า

“Lightning” soup

Serves 4

Ingredients

For the Optional Chili Condiment

½ teaspoon salt

6-8 small cloves garlic (approximately 10 grams total)

6-8 small fresh chilies (approximately 10 grams total)

For the Soup

1 small (approximately 1 kilogram/2 pound) kabocha squash/Japanese pumpkin

2 tablespoons vegetable oil

1½ teaspoons salt

1 small stalk lemongrass (approximately 25 grams), exterior layer and upper green section discarded, lower pale section bruised

Thai Kitchen Tools

granite mortar and pestle

Procedure

Make the chili condiment: To a mortar and pestle, add the salt, garlic and chili. Pound and grind to a coarse paste.

Make the soup: Peel and seed the kabocha squash/Japanese pumpkin. Cut into cubes slightly smaller than 1 inch square. To a medium stockpot over high heat, add the oil and salt. When smoking, add 1½ quarts water. Add the pumpkin and lemongrass, bring to the boil. Lower the heat slightly and cook at a rapid simmer until kabocha squash/Japanese pumpkin is soft, approximately 10 minutes.

Remove to a serving bowl and serve hot, with long-grained rice and the chili condiment, as part of a Hmong meal.

Nqaij Puas Xyaw Paj Dos

Thailand’s Hmong population can be traced back to China, a legacy that, as many as 200 years later, can still be seen in certain dishes. One example is this stir-fry, which combines what for many Hmong might be considered decadent ingredients – meat and oyster sauce – and the type of resourceful produce their cuisine revolves around – in this case the slightly sweet, pleasantly pungent flowering stalks of the onion plant. If you can source onion stalks, it’s a simple and delicious dish that probably wouldn’t be out of place in rural China.

Nqaij Puas Xyaw Paj Dos

Ground pork belly stir-fried with the stalks of flowering onion

Serves 4

Ingredients

150 grams pork belly

1 tablespoon vegetable oil

400 grams flowering onion stalks

2 tablespoons oyster sauce

½ teaspoon salt

Thai Kitchen Tools

medium (approximately 12-inch) wok

Procedure

Using a heavy cleaver, chop the pork belly to a coarse consistency.

            Trim off and discard the thick, tough ends of the flowering onion stalks, and cut the stalks into sections approximately 2 inches long (you should end up with approximately 300 grams of flowering onion stalks).

            To a wok over medium-high heat, add the oil and pork. Fry, stirring occasionally, until the pork is cooked through, about 2 minutes. Increase heat to high, add the flowering onion stalks, oyster sauce and salt, stirring occasionally, until the vegetables are just cooked but still crispy, about 3 more minutes. Taste, adjusting seasoning if necessary; the nqaij puas xyaw paj dos should taste salty, from the oyster sauce and salt, and fragrant, from the onion stalks.       

            Remove to a serving dish and serve hot, with long-grained rice, as part of a Hmong meal.

Khanom Sen Nuea

Across northern Thailand, there are countless takes on khanom jiin naam ngiaw, thin, round rice noodles served in a hearty soup of pork and tomatoes. But the version served at Pa Suk, in Chiang Rai, stands out for being both traditional and adapted.

For starters, it’s made with beef, not the usual pork.

“My parents used to serve the beef version,” explains Nongkran Khuttiya, the second-generation owner of Pa Suk, a Chiang Rai noodle legend that’s been open for more than 40 years. “In the past, they didn’t include much meat; they just used the bones, it was more of a broth. I’ve adjusted my mother’s recipe to make it richer, meatier.”

As such, Nongkran’s broth can stand up to the heartier flat rice noodles, rather than the thin, round khanom jiin (known locally as khanom sen) that are the standard. But in a nod to the past, she insists on using chilies prepared the old way – dried over a fire – providing the dish with a deliciously smoky fragrance (if cooking outside of Thailand, smoked chipotles can be used as a rough equivalent). Her broth also includes more than a touch of thua nao khaep, disks of fermented, dried soybeans, which give the dish both a boost of umami and a pleasantly funky fragrance. (As with other recipes that include thua nao khaep, if you don’t have access to this obscure ingredient, Thai- or Chinese-style fermented soybean paste can be used as an approximate substitute, but its typically high salt content means you’ll have to adjust the seasoning accordingly.) The result is a bowl that seems to unite all of northern Thailand’s favorite flavors and fragrances: rich, meaty, smoky, spicy and umami.

Note that fresh khanom jiin noodles are generally not available outside of Southeast Asia. If cooking in the U.S., Andy Ricker of Pok Pok suggests using fine-gauge dried bún, Vietnamese rice noodles, following the cooking instructions on the package.

Khanom Sen Nuea

ขนมเส้นเนื้อ

A hearty beef and tomato broth served with thin rice noodles

Serves 4-6

Ingredients

For the Curry Paste

2 fermented soybean disks (approximately 30 grams total)

1 teaspoon salt

6 large dried chilies (approximately 6 grams total)

10 small dried chilies (approximately 5 grams total)

8 shallots (approximately 60 grams total), peeled and sliced

36 small cloves of garlic (approximately 30 grams total)

1 teaspoon shrimp paste

For the Soup

3 tablespoons vegetable oil

500 grams/1 pound beef bones

250 grams/1/2 pound boneless beef shortribs, cut into pieces approximately ½ inch square

250 grams/1/2 pound beef off-cuts (this can include skin, connective tissue, joints, cartilage), cut into pieces approximately ½ inch square

40 dried cotton tree flowers (approximately 15 grams total), boiled for 15 minutes or until tender

30 cherry tomatoes (approximately 300 grams total), halved

150 grams beef blood cake (or chicken, if beef isn’t available), cut into cubes approximately ½ inch square

2 tablespoons fish sauce

1 teaspoon salt

½ teaspoon MSG (optional)

Garnishes, Sides & Condiments

600 grams/1½ pounds khanom jiin noodles or 300 grams of flat, dried rice noodles

2 sprigs green onion (approximately 40 grams total), chopped

4 small bunches cilantro (approximately 20 grams total), chopped

1 small head of cabbage (approximately 200 grams total), shredded finely

150 grams of mung bean sprouts

200 grams of pickled mustard greens, chopped

fish sauce

Thai Kitchen Tools

granite mortar and pestle

Procedure

Prepare the curry paste: Over a flame or coals (or in a toaster), toast the fermented soybean disks until golden in color, fragrant and uniformly blistered. To a mortar and pestle, add the salt and large dried chilies. Pound and grind to a coarse powder. Add the small dried chilies, pound and grind to a coarse powder. Add the shallots and garlic, pound and grind to a coarse paste. Add the shrimp paste, pound and grind to a coarse paste. Add the fermented soybean disks, pound and grind to a fine paste.

            Prepare the soup: To a medium sized stockpot over medium-low heat, add the oil and curry paste. Fry 1 or 2 minutes, until fragrant and combined with oil. Add 2½ quarts of water, the beef bones, the boneless beef shortribs, the beef off-cuts and the cotton tree flowers. Increase heat to high and bring to the boil. Reduce heat to a rapid simmer, and simmer, uncovered, until the soup has reduced by approximately a quarter and the beef is tender, about 1 hour. Remove and discard the beef bones. Add the cherry tomatoes, blood, fish sauce, salt and MSG (if using). Simmer another 10 minutes, or until the tomatoes have just started to soften. Taste, adjusting seasoning, if necessary; the khanom sen nuea should taste beefy, umami and slightly spicy, and should be fragrant, from the fermented soybean disks and smoked chilies.

            To a bowl, add approximately 100 grams of khanom jiin noodles or thin rice noodles and top with approximately 1 to 1½ cups of the soup. Garnish with green onion and cilantro and serve with optional sides of cabbage, pickled mustard greens, mung beans and fish sauce.

Yam Naw

“We used to use a porcupine quill to shred the bamboo!” explains Thongphian Pana, sitting on the floor of her collective’s communal kitchen, wielding a fork and a limp spear of bamboo. “But it’s hard to find one these days.”

Thongphian, a member of a ladies’ agricultural collective in the village of Ban Hat Pha Khon, in Nan, was describing the old-school way to prepare yam naw, a salad both made from and seasoned with the produce of the monsoon.

Come the annual rains, Thongphian and others in northern Thailand scan the forests for the budding shoots of a type of bamboo called naw mai rai. After being located and dug up, the bamboo is boiled for several hours to make it tender and to rid it of its inherently bitter flavor. The shoots are then peeled of their hard exterior and shredded into confetti-like strips – the step that used to necessitate a porcupine quill. The shredded bamboo is then seasoned with a basic herb paste and naam puu, a dark, bitter-tasting paste made from tiny field crabs – the other wet season specialty.

 “If you don’t like naam puu, you can use fermented fish, or you could just add salt,” explains Thongphian, although her tone suggests that, in doing this, you’d lose that unique flavor and, of course, that seasonality.



Yam Naw

ยำหน่อ

A bamboo salad seasoned with northern Thai-style crab paste

Serves 4

Ingredients

2½ pounds fresh, raw bamboo

4 large fresh chilies (approximately 60 grams total)

6 shallots (approximately 50 grams total)

16 small garlic cloves (approximately 15 grams total)

½ teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon northern Thai-style crab paste

1 small bunch cilantro (approximately 5 grams), chopped

1 bunch green onion (approximately 20 grams), chopped

Thai Kitchen Tools

granite mortar and pestle

Procedure

To a large stockpot over high heat, add the bamboo, and cover with several inches of water. Bring to the boil, reduce heat to a rapid simmer, and simmer until the bamboo is very tender, which can take from 2 to 3 hours, depending on the bamboo. Drain, discarding the water. When cool enough to handle peel and discard the hard exterior layers of the bamboo, and cut off and discard the woody base. To the remaining tender core, using the tines of a fork, scrape the surface of the bamboo, shredding it into relatively thin strips; you should end up with approximately 350 grams/just under 1 pound of shredded bamboo.

            While the bamboo is boiling, grill or dry-roast the chilies and shallots until charred and fragrant. Peel and discard burnt exterior from each. To mortar and pestle, add salt and chilies. Pound and grind to a coarse paste. Add the shallots and garlic, pound and grind to a coarse paste. Add the crab paste, pound and grind to a fine paste. Add the bamboo, pounding gently with the mortar and stirring with a spoon, to bruise slightly and to combine the ingredients. Add the cilantro and green onion, stirring to combine. Taste, adjusting seasoning if necessary; the yam naw should taste approximately equal parts funky, from the crab paste, spicy, and slightly salty.

            Remove to a serving dish and serve with sticky rice as part of a northern Thai meal.

Op Kai

This dish, taught to me by Surat Wangwaew, chef/owner of Sai Ua Mae Jan Dee, an excellent northern Thai restaurant in Lampang, is the perfect illustration of what northern Thais tend to do when faced with meat: throw a bunch of fragrant herbs at it. Yet it’s almost certainly Burmese/Shan in origin, likely a cousin of the Shan dish up kai asii pian, an herbaceous curry probably introduced during the late 19th century, when the British logging concession drew Burmese, Karen, Shan and Mon administrators and laborers to Lampang. In the scrum of northern Thai, Shan and Burmese cooking styles and ingredients that followed, Surat’s op kai has come to include dried spice, in this case malaep, a citrusy, numbing seed that frequently appears in dishes in Lampang. The result is an overtly fragrant, spicy, meaty curry that manages to feel both rustic and cosmopolitan.

As a two-pound bird is a rarity outside of Thailand, consider going with a smaller chicken, split in half lengthwise, or two pounds of chicken parts.

Op Kai

อบไก่

An herbal chicken curry

Serves 4

Ingredients

For the Curry Paste

1 teaspoon malaep

½ teaspoon salt

8 medium dried chilies (approximately 5 grams total)

3 large dried chilies (approximately 4 grams total)

1 small piece galangal (approximately 30 grams), peeled and sliced

1 small piece turmeric (approximately 10 grams), peeled and sliced

4 small bunches cilantro (20 grams total), leaves chopped and reserved, roots/stems chopped (you should have approximately 10 grams of roots/stems)

3 stalks lemongrass (approximately 60 grams total), exterior layer and upper green section discarded, lower pale section sliced thinly

6 medium shallots (approximately 80 grams total), peeled and sliced thinly

20 garlic cloves (approximately 40 grams total), peeled

1 tablespoon and 1 teaspoon shrimp paste

For the Curry

1 small free-range chicken (approximately 1 kilogram/2 pounds)

2 tablespoons lard

1 tablespoon fish sauce

10 kaffir lime leaves, torn

1 small bunch green onion (approximately 20 grams), chopped

Thai Kitchen Tools

granite mortar and pestle

Procedure

Prepare the curry paste: To a wok or saute pan over low heat, add the malaep. Toast, stirring occasionally, until fragrant, about 2 minutes. To a mortar and pestle, add the salt, medium dried chilies, large dried chilies and malaep. Pound and grind to a rough powder. Add the galangal and turmeric, pound and grind to a rough paste. Add the cilantro roots/stems and lemongrass, pound and grind to a rough paste. Add the shallots and garlic, pound and grind to a rough paste. Add the shrimp paste, pound and grind a fine paste.

            Prepare the chicken: Using a knife, remove the legs and wings from the chicken. Separate the drumsticks from the thighs, and using a cleaver, chop the drumsticks, thighs and wings in in segments approximately 1 inch wide. Using the cleaver, halve the breast lengthwise and chop each half into sections approximately 1 inch wide. Halve any of the larger gizzards.

            Prepare the curry: To a large pot over medium heat, add the lard, chicken and curry paste. Fry, stirring to combine, until the chicken has started to firm up and the mixture is fragrant, about 5 minutes. Increase heat slightly, add enough water to just cover chicken (approximately 1 quart). When mixture reaches the boil, reduce heat and allow to simmer, uncovered, until the chicken is tender and the liquid has reduced by approximately a third, about 20 minutes. Remove the curry from heat, add the fish sauce and kaffir lime leaves. Taste, adjusting seasoning if necessary; the op kai should taste lightly spicy and salty (in that order), and should be fragrant from the herbs and malaep.

            Remove to a serving bowl, garnish with the cilantro and green onion, and serve warm or at room temperature, with sticky rice, as part of a northern Thai meal.   

Khanom Jiin Naam Ngiaw

Khanom jiin naam ngiaw, a hearty soup of pork ribs and tomatoes served over thin, round rice noodles, is a bona-fide northern Thai classic, easily one of the most beloved dishes in the region. Yet like khao soi, kaeng hang lay, and some of northern Thailand’s other most famous dishes, it’s actually an immigrant.

Ngiaw is a not entirely PC term for the Shan people, an ethnic group closely related to the Thais, suggesting that they had a role in creating or spreading the dish. Today, most Shan reside in Myanmar, but forced immigration and conflict during the 18th and 19th centuries meant that they crossed to northern Thailand in great numbers, bringing with them their cuisine. Yet as khanom jiin naam ngiaw spread across northern Thailand it took varying forms: in Chiang Rai, the dish is typically rich and oily, and is sometimes made with beef; in Mae Hong Son, locals prefer a thin, tart broth with little or no meat; while in Phrae and Nan, the soup is clear, fragrant and overtly porky.

“It has to have cotton tree flowers and blood,” offers Areerat Chowkasem, a Mae Rim-based cook and the source of this recipe.

Areerat is describing her take on Chiang Mai-style khanom jiin nam ngiaw, which with its precise balance of meaty, tart and salty flavors, has come to be regarded as the standard across northern Thailand. Its restrained heartiness stems from a combination of tender pork ribs and disks of dried, fermented soybeans. Tart tomatoes, stewed until soft yet not entirely disintegrated, serve to boost the umami, their acidity also functioning to cut through all that meatiness. And of course there’s those two unusual ingredients.

Areerat tells me that, in the past, raw blood was added directly to the soup as a thickener, but today it’s included in the form of tender, steamed cubes. Cotton tree flowers, she explains, are there for one reason alone: “They’re chewy.”

As is the case across the region, a bowl of Chiang Mai-style khanom jiin nam ngiaw is garnished with crispy garlic and garlic oil, and is served with deep-fried dried chilies, two ingredients that feature in several other northern Thai dishes with likely Shan origins. This recipe yields a generous portion of crispy garlic and garlic oil, which can be sealed tightly, refrigerated for months and used with a variety of other recipes.

Note that fresh khanom jiin noodles are generally not available outside of Southeast Asia. As a substitute, Andy Ricker of Pok Pok suggests using fine-gauge dried bún, Vietnamese rice noodles, following the cooking instructions on the package.

Khanom Jiin Naam Ngiaw

ขนมจีนน้ำเงี้ยว

Chiang Mai-style pork rib and tomato broth served over thin rice noodles

Serves 4-6

Ingredients

For the Crispy Garlic and Garlic Oil

100 small cloves garlic (approximately 100 grams total)

2 cups vegetable oil

For the Crispy Dried Chilies

20 medium dried chilies (approximately 10 grams total)

4 tablespoons vegetable oil

For the Curry Paste

½ teaspoon salt

20 medium dried chilies (approximately 10 grams total)

6 shallots, (approximately 50 grams total), peeled and sliced

30 small garlic cloves (approximately 25 grams total)

1 tablespoon shrimp paste

For the Soup

2 fermented soybean disks (approximately 30 grams total)

2 tablespoons garlic oil

1 kilogram/2½ pounds pork back ribs, chopped into segments about 1½ inches wide

20 dried cotton tree flowers (approximately 7 grams total), boiled for 15 minutes or until tender

3 tablespoons Thai-style salted fermented soybeans/fermented soybean paste

400 grams chicken blood cake, cut in cubes approximately ½ inch square

25 tart cherry tomatoes (approximately 200 grams total), halved

4 medium tomatoes (approximately 200 grams total), quartered

Garnishes & Sides

200 grams pickled mustard greens, chopped

1 small head cabbage (approximately 200 grams), shredded finely

150 grams mung bean sprouts

4 limes, cut into wedges

fish sauce

600 grams/1½ pounds khanom jiin noodles

2 small bunches green onion (approximately 40 grams total), chopped

4 small bunches cilantro (approximately 20 grams total), chopped

Thai Kitchen Tools

granite mortar and pestle

medium (approximately 12-inch) wok

Procedure

A day or two in advance, make the crispy garlic and garlic oil, the crispy dried chilies and the curry paste.

Make the crispy garlic and garlic oil: To a granite mortar and pestle, add the garlic. Pound and grind until all the cloves have been smashed and have a coarse, rough consistency just short of a paste. To a wok over medium-low heat, add the garlic and vegetable oil. Bring to a low simmer and fry, stirring occasionally, until the garlic is fragrant, golden and crispy, which can take between 20 and 30 minutes. Keep the garlic and oil mixture in a glass jar at room temperature.

            Make the crispy dried chilies: To wok over low heat, add the dried chilies and vegetable oil. Fry, stirring occasionally until the chilies are fragrant, dark red (but not black) and just beginning to crisp, about 5 minutes. Remove the chilies from oil and allow to drain on a paper towel. When cool, keep the chilies in a sealed container at room temperature.

Make the curry paste: To a granite mortar and pestle, add the salt and medium dried chilies. Pound and grind to a coarse powder. Add the shallots and garlic, pound and grind to a coarse paste. Add the shrimp paste, pound and grind to a fine paste.

            On the day of serving, make the soup: Over a flame or coals (or in a toaster), toast the fermented soybean disks until golden in color, fragrant and uniformly blistered. When cool enough to handle, add to a mortar and pestle and grind to a powder. To a medium sized stockpot over medium heat, add the oil and curry paste. Fry 1 or 2 minutes, until fragrant and combined with oil. Add the pork ribs, stirring to combine. Add the cotton tree flowers and enough water to just cover the ribs (approximately 2 quarts of water). Increase heat to medium-high and bring to the boil, maintaining soup at a relatively aggressive simmer. Add the fermented soybean paste and fermented soybean disk powder. Close the lid and allow to simmer approximately 10 minutes. Remove the lid, add the blood and tomatoes. Allow to simmer, uncovered, another 15 to 20 minutes, or until the pork ribs are tender, the tomatoes are soft, a thin layer of oil has risen to the top, and the mixture is fragrant. Taste, adjusting seasoning if necessary; the nam ngiaw should taste overtly umami, slightly spicy and tart.

            To a shallow bowl or deep plate, add approximately 100 grams of khanom jiin noodles and top with approximately 1 cup of the soup. Garnish with green onion, cilantro and crispy garlic and garlic oil. Serve khanom jiin nam ngiaw hot, with optional sides.

Khao Puk Ngaa

Visit rural Mae Hong Son Province during the winter and you’ll note that just about everybody seems to be obsessing over tiny, round, caviar-colored seeds: picking them, roasting them and pounding them. Known in English as perilla and in Thai as ngaa khii mawn, the seeds come from a plant related to shiso, the fragrant leaf used in Japanese cooking. And all the fuss is over khao puk ngaa, a uniquely seasonal sweet snack.

“We grow lots of perilla around here,” explains Miakhin Charoensuk, a resident of the tidy Shan village of Muang Pon, in Mae Hong Son Province. “The seeds are only available in winter, around December.”

To make khao puk ngaa, Miakhin and other Shan inhabitants of Mae Hong Son dry perilla seeds in the sun and dry-roast them until fragrant before grinding them to a coarse powder with salt. Then, along with freshly-steamed sticky rice, they’re tossed into a giant wooden mortar and pestle and pounded to a smooth, soft, gray/purple gray mass – a labor-intensive job that generally requires two people.

“I make 30 to 40 kilograms of khao puk ngaa every day to sell at the morning market,” Miakhin tells me, adding that this task requires her to wake up at 1:30am. “If there’s a festival or funeral, I’m often asked to make more.”

The snack can be eaten as-is or served as a ball or thick pancake dipped in additional ground perilla seeds and encasing a cube of raw sugarcane sugar – the latter a tender, toasty mass with a sweet crunch. Or, if you’re lucky enough to stay at Miakhin’s house as I was, her husband will cut the pounded rice into a thick slice and grill it over coals until it puffs up and forms a crispy shell with a soft interior. You’ll be invited to dip the still-warm khao puk ngaa in melted raw sugarcane, resulting a snack that’s hearty, crispy, smoky and pleasantly bittersweet – ideal on a chilly winter, Mae Hong Son morning.

Kaeng Kradaang

There’s probably no northern Thai dish that says cold season more than kaeng kradaang, a gelatinous, terrine-like mixture of pork, herbs and spices that, in the past at least, required the relative chill of northern Thailand’s winter to make it.

“The weather was cooler then, and the dish firmed up on its own,” explains Nattapon Upama, for three decades a food vendor at Chiang Mai’s San Pa Khoy Market, and the source of this recipe. “These days, the weather is too hot, so I have to let it set in a refrigerator.”

Nattapon also uses the thickener agar-agar to make his kaeng kradaang (Thai for ‘hard curry’), which fittingly, he describes as the ‘city’ version of the dish: “In the countryside, they eat another version that includes chili and herbs – lemongrass and galangal,” the 53-year-old native of Phayao tells me. “The spiciness in my version comes from white pepper and garlic.”

The result is an overtly peppery, fragrant head cheese of sorts, one that, according to Nattapon, is tasty eaten with both long-grained or sticky rice or, like its western counterpart, other carbs: “Some people take it home, put it between two slices of bread and make a sandwich!”

Kaeng Kradaang

แกงกระด้าง

Northern Thai ‘head cheese’

Serves 4-6

Ingredients

For the Head Cheese

400 grams/14 ounces pork leg, including skin, fat and meat

100 grams pig ear

1 teaspoon salt

½ teaspoon fish sauce

½ teaspoon ‘white’ soy sauce

¼ teaspoon agar-agar powder

For the Paste

4 small coriander roots (approximately 4 grams total), chopped

3 large cloves garlic (approximately 15 grams total), peeled and chopped

1 tablespoon white peppercorns

Sides

4 small bunches cilantro (approximately 20 grams total)

Thai Kitchen Tools

granite mortar and pestle

1 medium (9 inch) square metal baking pan

Procedure

The evening before serving the dish, to a medium saucepan over high heat, add the pork leg, pig ear and 1½ quarts of water. Bring to the boil, reduce heat to a simmer, cover the saucepan and simmer until pork is tender, about 45 minutes.

            While the pork is simmering, make the paste: To a mortar and pestle, add the coriander roots, garlic and white peppercorns. Pound and grind to a fine paste.

            Remove the pork leg and pork ear, retaining the broth. When cool enough to handle, slice the pork leg and cut into cubes approximately ½ inch square. Cut the pork ear into strips approximately ½ inch wide and slice thinly.

            To a medium saucepan over high heat, add the paste, pork, 1 quart of the reserved broth, fish sauce, ‘white’ soy sauce and salt. Bring to the boil, reduce heat to a simmer and simmer uncovered for 15 minutes. Taste, adjusting seasoning if necessary; the kaeng kradaang should taste peppery and slightly salty, and be fragrant from the paste.

            Remove a half cup or so of the broth, and in a small bowl, combine with the agar-agar, whisking to ensure that it’s completely combined. Return the mixture to the saucepan, stirring to combine.

            Pour the mixture into a baking pan. If the weather is cool, leave overnight to set. Otherwise, allow to set in a refrigerator overnight.

            When set, slice into sections about 1 inch wide and 5 inches long and serve, with sides of cilantro, with long-grained or sticky rice, as part of a northern Thai meal.

Khai Paam

I had driven all the way to Ban Pa Miang, a remote village at the edge of jungle in Lampang, in pursuit of khai paam, an old-school dish of eggs cracked into a banana leaf cup, seasoned and slow-cooked over coals – a grilled omelet of sorts.

At least that’s what I thought I was doing.

“Paam means to cook without oil in a banana leaf,” explained Pensri Rakwong, the friendly 48-year-old woman responsible for cooking duties at the village’s homestay program, from her semi open-air kitchen. This I was aware of, but it soon became clear that Pensri had something else in mind.

“Northern Thais consider khai paam a grilled dish,” she explained, while setting up a wok, “but most of the people here do it this way.”

“This way” meant placing two sheets of banana leaf over some simmering water in a wok, and cooking the eggs on top of them, essentially steaming them. The lack of oil and the use of a banana leaf – the defining elements of paam – were indeed present, but the process was entirely different. Also breaking the mold, Pensri supplemented her dish with mushrooms, tomatoes and onion, making it hearty, rather than the rich, smoky dish I had in mind.

I’ll admit, I was disappointed. I had driven all this way with something very specific in mind. But upon tasting it, I rallied: although Pensri’s khai paam took a significantly different form from what I had expected, its roots – a method of cooking eggs for those with little or no access to cooking oil – were still there, and perhaps most importantly, it was delicious.

Khai Paam

ไข่ป่าม

A steamed “grilled” omelet

Serves 4

Ingredients

3 eggs

2 large shiitake mushrooms (approximately 30 grams total), sliced thinly

1 small onion (approximately 50 grams), peeled and sliced thinly

1 medium tomato (approximately 80 grams), seeded and sliced thinly

1 small bunch green onion (approximately 20 grams), chopped

½ teaspoon ‘white’ soy sauce

1 pinch salt

3 feet of banana leaf, cut into 3 sections 1 foot long each

Thai Kitchen Tools

medium (approximately 12-inch) wok

Procedure

To a small mixing bowl, add the eggs, shiitake mushrooms, onion, tomato, green onion, ‘white’ soy sauce and salt. Stir thoroughly.

            To a wok over medium-high heat, add 1 cup of water. When simmering, cover with two banana leaves. When the leaves are warm and pliable, and ensuring that there’s a bowl-like depression in the center, pour the egg mixture on topmost banana leaf. Cover the wok (if your wok doesn’t have a cover you can use any remaining banana leaves to do this) and steam the omelet until firm on the bottom, about 5 minutes. Place the remaining banana leaf over the top of the omelet and flip (including the banana leaf that’s below the omelet), steaming until the omelet is firm, another 5 minutes or so.

            Remove to a serving dish and serve, warm or at room temperature, with sticky rice, as part of a northern Thai meal.

Kaeng Sanat

“I was born in this house,” says Somprattana Na Nan, seated delicately in a chair on her teakwood, gingerbread-style balcony. “There used to be 20 or 30 people, lots of relatives living here. There were always people cooking, making northern-style food – curries, laap, things like that.”

Faded, sagging, and in parts perilously dilapidated, Somprattana’s house has clearly seen better days. But the scenario she describes is not difficult to imagine. Spanning two floors, seemingly countless rooms, open-air walkways, a vast kitchen and a hidden location in an overgrown garden, Khum Ratchabut, as the house is officially known, is a thing of Southeast Asian fantasy. And not just for its unique architecture, but also for its links with northern Thai royalty.

In 1857, Somprattana’s great grandfather, Chao Maha Brahma Surathada, the 64th and final king of Nan, commissioned the construction of a vast golden teak mansion directly across from his palace (“They used to tell us that if you yelled from the front of the house, the back of the house wouldn’t hear you,” says Somprattana). In 1931, the king died, and soon after, Nan was fully – some might argue reluctantly – incorporated into the Kingdom of Siam. The king’s former mansion was subsequently disassembled, its teak planks retained and transformed into the home where Somprattana lives today, and along with them, one more legacy of those old royal days.

“We grew up eating dishes that people outside of the palace don’t know about,” she explains. “Such as kaeng sanat. Only people who are 60 years or older or who have a link with the palace would know this dish.”

Somprattana describes kaeng sanat as “a vegetable dish that happens to include pork”, and indeed, the hearty soup is all about plants and herbs, which range from astringent banana flower to tart preserved bamboo. Yet this very fact struck me as unusual for a dish of royal origin; shouldn’t there be more meat? More indulgence?

“Other dishes may involve only one or two ingredients, but this dish includes nine things,” says Somprattana, by way of explanation.

We have shifted to the kitchen at Khum Ratchabut, a cavernous wooden hall separated from the main structure by an elevated wooden walkway. Half of its space is dominated by a traditional northern Thai cooking area, a raised platform topped with sand and coal-burning stoves, which these days functions largely as a showpiece. Somprattana talks while adding vegetables and herbs to a vast and bubbling wok.

“I moved to Bangkok as a teen and lived there for 40 years,” she tells me. “I never made this dish until I came back to Nan, 20 years ago. I don’t have a maid here, so I had to learn to cook for myself. But when I was young I saw people making this food all the time.”

When she’s finished cooking, Somprattana and I eat at a wooden table hemmed in by piles of faded magazines and empty bottles, old photographs and a refrigerator from the 1940s. Kaeng sanat is, quite frankly, chunky and unappealingly monotone in appearance. But it’s also unique and delicious – pleasantly tart and salty – in both form and flavor quite unlike any other northern Thai dish I’ve encountered. Much like the house in which it was made, it could never be described as flashy, and you could say that it could use some work. But I’d argue that that’s part of its charm.

Kaeng Sanat

แกงสนัด

A royal curry of pork belly and vegetables

Serves 4

Ingredients

2 tablespoons black sesame

9 stalks water spinach (approximately 100 grams total), stalks only, tender leaves discarded

4 long beans (approximately 75 grams total)

30 grams tart, young tamarind leaves

4 large fresh red chilies (approximately 60 grams total)

1 small banana blossom (approximately 500 grams)

2 Thai white ribbed eggplants (approximately 300 grams total)

150 grams pickled bamboo, sliced thinly and rinsed in several changes of water

300 grams pork belly, cut into pieces approximately 1 inch square

1½ teaspoons salt

1½ teaspoons fish sauce

1 teaspoon fermented fish sauce

6 large cloves garlic (approximately 17 grams total)

2 tablespoons vegetable oil

Thai Kitchen Tools

granite mortar and pestle

Procedure

Prepare the black sesame: To a small wok or saute pan over low heat, add the black sesame. Toast, stirring frequently, until the seeds start to pop, about 3 minutes. When cool, add to a mortar and pestle. Pound and grind to a very coarse powder.

Prepare the vegetables: Cut the water spinach stalks and long beans into segments about 2 inches long. Halve each chili lengthwise. Peel and discard the exterior red leaves of the banana blossom. Halve the banana blossom lengthwise and cut the white, inner section of into strips about 1 inch wide. To a medium mixing bowl, add plenty of water, a dash of vinegar and the banana blossom (this will prevent discoloration). Score the eggplant deeply into quarters or eighths (leaving eggplant whole) and put in the same water as the banana blossom.

            To a large pot over high heat, add 1 quart of water and the pork belly. Bring to the boil, reduce to a simmer and add the bamboo and banana blossom. Bring to a simmer, add the eggplants and long beans. Bring to a simmer and add the salt, fish sauce and fermented fish sauce. Bring to a simmer and add the water spinach, tamarind leaves and chilies. Close lid, reduce heat, and allow to simmer until fragrant and the vegetables are soft, about another 5 to 7 minutes. Add the black sesame, bring to a simmer. Taste, adjusting seasoning if necessary; the kaeng sanat should taste equal parts tart and salty, and should be fragrant.

            While the kaeng sanat is simmering, to a mortar and pestle, add the garlic. Pound and grind to a coarse paste. To a wok over low heat, add the garlic and vegetable oil. Fry, stirring frequently, until garlic is golden, crispy and fragrant, about 10 minutes.

Remove to a serving bowl and garnish with the crispy garlic and garlic oil. Serve warm or at room temperature, with sticky rice, as part of a Thai meal.

Yam Phak Hueat

Forget durian; when the dry season comes around, I’m most excited about the emergence of phak hueat, the budding leaves of the white fig tree.

“The leaves are only available during the dry season, for two or three months,” explains Surat Wangwaew, the chef/owner Sai Ua Mae Jan Dee, an excellent northern Thai restaurant in Lampang, and the source of this recipe. “The young, tender, red buds are tart, while the older green leaves are astringent.”

Surat goes on to tell me that phak hueat feature in a number of dishes in northern Thailand, from soups to sides for chili-based dips. But if you ask me, steamed and coupled with ground pork and a few tomatoes, they’re seemingly made for this dish, a cross between a salad and a stir-fry with that rare and delicious intersection of meaty and salty, sour and astringent.

Yam Phak Hueat

ยำผักเฮือด

A salad of young white fig leaves

Serves 4

Ingredients

For the Salad

200 grams young white fig leaves

2 tablespoons lard

140 grams ground pork

12 cherry tomatoes (approximately 140 grams total), halved

7 shallots (approximately 50 grams), peeled and sliced thinly

For the Curry Paste

10 medium dried chilies (approximately 5 grams total)

1 small piece of galangal (approximately 8 grams), peeled and sliced thinly

¼ teaspoon salt

5 shallots (approximately 45 grams), peeled and sliced

20 small garlic cloves (approximately 15 grams total)

1 teaspoon shrimp paste

Garnishes

1 small bunch cilantro (approximately 5 grams), chopped

1 bunch green onion (approximately 20 grams), chopped

1 heaping tablespoon crispy garlic and garlic oil (see page 000)

10 crispy deep-fried chilies (see page 000)

Thai Kitchen Tools

Thai-style steamer

granite mortar and pestle

medium (approximately 12-inch) wok

Procedure

To a Thai-style steamer over high heat, add the white fig leaves. Steam until tender, about 20 minutes. When cool enough to handle, chop roughly.

            While the leaves are steaming, make the curry paste: To mortar and pestle, add the chilies, galangal and salt. Pound and grind to a coarse paste. Add the shallots and garlic, pound and grind to a coarse paste. Add the shrimp paste, pound and grind to a fine paste.

            To a wok over medium-low heat, add the lard, ground pork and curry paste. Fry, stirring to combine, until the pork is cooked through and mixture is fragrant, about 5 minutes. Add the tomatoes, pressing to crush and combine with the pork mixture until tomatoes have been reduced to something just short of a sauce or paste, another 5 minutes. Add the white fig leaves, stirring to combine, about 2 or 3 minutes. Add the sliced shallots, stirring to combine. Taste, adjusting seasonings if necessary; yam phak hueat should taste equal parts meaty and savory, followed by slightly tart and astringent.

            Remove to a serving plate, garnish with the cilantro, green onion, crispy garlic and crispy deep-fried chilies and serve, at room temperature, with sticky rice, as part of a northern Thai meal.

Kaeng Phak Waan Sai Khai Mot

In northern Thailand, there’s probably no more prized seasonal ingredient than khai mot daeng, the eggs of a type of red ant. Visit any market in the region from February to May, and you’ll inevitably encounter vendors selling small plates piled with the delicate white pills. But the eggs, which are only available in the wild, typically in nests found high in trees, are notoriously difficult to gather.

 “You have to see which way the wind is blowing,” explains Thongphian Pana, member of a ladies’ agricultural collective in the village of Ban Hat Pha Khon, in Nan, and the source of this recipe. “Otherwise the ants will fall on you and bite!”

Thongphian adds that stinging ant urine is another unpleasant obstacle to gathering the eggs, which is done by prying the nest loose with a long bamboo pole before knocking it into a basket. Yet despite all the fuss, even northern Thais will begrudgingly admit that ant eggs have relatively little flavor.

Instead, what draws northerners to the eggs is their poppy, crunchy mouthfeel. They’re typically served in a soup along with phak waan, the pale green, glossy, tender, subtly sweet (the name translates as ‘sweet vegetable’) and similarly crunchy leaves of a tree with no English name. Phak waan is also only available during a short window in the dry season, and both it and the ant eggs have a subtly unctuous flavor that Thais call man, but it’s no understatement to say that this highly seasonal soup is all about the texture.

Kaeng Phak Waan Sai Khai Mot

แกงผักหวานใส่ไข่มด

A soup of red ant eggs and phak waan

Serves 4

Ingredients

For the Curry Paste

1 stalk lemongrass (approximately 25 grams), exterior layer and upper green section discarded, lower pale section sliced thinly

1 teaspoon salt

8 medium fresh green chilies (approximately 8 grams total)

3 shallots (approximately 25 grams total), peeled and sliced

4 small cloves garlic (approximately 4 grams total)

1 teaspoon shrimp paste

For the Soup

100 grams phak waan

100 grams ant eggs

½ teaspoon sugar

2 medium tomatoes (approximately 200 grams total), cut into eighths

Thai Kitchen Tools

granite mortar and pestle

Procedure

Prepare the curry paste: To a mortar and pestle, add the lemongrass and salt. Pound and grind to a coarse paste. Add the chilies, pound and grind to a coarse paste. Add the shallots and garlic, pound and grind to a coarse paste. Add the shrimp paste, pound and grind to a fine paste.

            Prepare the soup: Remove and discard the thick, woody stems from the phak waan. Rinse the ant eggs in water several times to remove the starchy coating, if present, and any ants. To a medium-sized saucepan over medium-high heat, add 1 quart of water. Bring to a rapid simmer and add the curry paste and sugar. When the soup reaches a rapid simmer again, add the ant eggs. Bring to a rapid simmer again and add the tomatoes. Bring to a simmer and add the phak waan. Bring to a simmer and taste, adjusting seasoning, if necessary; the kaeng phak waan sai khai mot should taste slightly spicy, and the phak waan and ant eggs should provide a crunchy texture.

            Remove to a serving bowl and serve hot, with sticky rice, as part of a northern Thai meal.

Kaeng Naw

Among northern Thais, particularly those living in the countryside, the undisputed king of the wet season bounty is bamboo. Across the country, Thais consume approximately 50 types of bamboo, which are eaten in a variety of dishes, from soups to stir-frys. But particularly prized in northern Thailand is young bamboo, which early in the wet season emerges from the soil tender and sweet – the perfect foil for a hearty, spicy, herbal dish.

Wimorn Penphaen is a Chiang Rai based cook, collaborating with her family to prepare and sell eight different northern Thai dishes at Chiang Rai’s evening market on a daily basis. She was kind enough to let me into her home kitchen on the day they were making kaeng naw, a soup of young bamboo bulked out with grilled catfish and made spicy and fragrant via the addition of herbs.

“It’s something people love to eat during the rainy season,” explains Wimorn, of the dish.

When I arrive at Wimorn’s expansive, open-air kitchen, one relative is pounding chilies with a mortar and pestle while another is simmering bamboo in a saucepan and yet another washes herbs. Kaeng naw is a relatively fiddly dish to make, but in this assembly line-like situation the final product emerges amazingly quickly, and after what seems like only a few minutes, Wimorn hands me a small bowl for a taste. “It should taste a bit spicy and a bit salty, but mostly balanced in flavor,” she explains. “Any sweet flavor should come from the bamboo.”

Indeed, Wimorn’s kaeng naw packs a subtle sweetness as well as a pleasant crunch – attributes that I, like the people of northern Thailand, have come to associate with Thailand’s rainy season.

Kaeng Naw

แกงหน่อ

A soup of young bamboo, grilled fish and fragrant herbs

Serves 4

Ingredients

For the Soup

1 medium-sized catfish (approximately 250 grams/9 ounces)

400 grams fresh, immature bamboo, sliced into thin sections approximately 3 inches long and ½ inch wide

18 yanang leaves, stems discarded (you should have approximately 10 grams of leaves total), torn

15 wild betel leaves (approximately 15 grams total), stems discarded, torn

12 sprigs of young cha-om (approximately 50 grams total), tender leaves removed, coarse stalks discarded

For the Curry Paste

4 large fresh chilies (approximately 70 grams total), sliced

5 shallots (approximately 40 grams total), peeled and sliced

20 small cloves garlic (approximately 15 grams total)

2 teaspoons shrimp paste

1 teaspoon fermented fish sauce

Thai Kitchen Tools

Thai-style charcoal grill or barbecue

granite mortar and pestle

Procedure

Prepare the catfish: Light the charcoal and allow the coals to reduce to low heat (approximately 250F to 350F, or when you can hold your palm 3 inches above grilling level for 8 to 10 seconds). Grill the catfish, turning once, until done, a total of around 30 minutes. When cool enough to handle, remove the meat, discarding the skin and bones (you should have about 100 grams of flaked catfish flesh).

            Prepare the bamboo: While the catfish is grilling, to a medium saucepan, add the bamboo and enough water to cover by a couple inches. Bring to the boil, reduce heat to a high simmer, and boil until the bamboo is slightly tender but still crunchy, about 20 minutes. Remove from the heat, discarding the water.

Make the curry paste: While the bamboo is boiling, to a granite mortar and pestle, add the chili, shallots and garlic. Pound and grind to a coarse paste. Add the shrimp paste and fermented fish sauce, pound and grind to a fine paste.

            Make the soup: To a large saucepan over high heat, add 1 quart of water, the curry paste, bamboo and the flaked catfish meat. Bring to the boil, reduce heat slightly to a rapid simmer. Allow soup to simmer until just slightly reduced and fragrant, about 3 or 4 minutes. Add the yanang leaves, wild betel leaves and cha-om, and allow to simmer until herbs have wilted slightly and are fragrant, another 2 or 3 minutes. Taste, adjusting seasoning, if necessary; the kaeng naw should taste salty and savory, from the shrimp paste, slightly spicy and fragrant, from the garlic and herbs, with a pleasantly crunchy texture.

            Remove to a serving bowl and serve warm or at room temperature, with sticky rice, as part of a northern Thai meal.

Francesinha: A reminiscence and recipe

The Philly cheesesteak. The club sandwich. The Reuben. Anything between two slices of bread at Katz's Delicatessen. These are all, frankly, ridiculous sandwiches. And as such, Americans may think they have a monopoly on ridiculous sandwiches.

But they've got nothing on Portugal's francesinha, almost certainly the most ridiculous sandwich of all.

According to Tiago Passos, the madness began at A Regaleira, a restaurant opened by his grandfather back in 1935 in the pleasant northern Portuguese city of Porto.

Restaurante A Regaleira, in Porto, Portugal, where the francesinha sandwich was invented in 1952. Image courtesy of Christopher Wise: www.lifecw.com

Passos describes how in the early 1950's, the restaurant hired a chef called Daniel Silva. Silva, who had worked a chef in Angola (a former Portuguese colony) and France, came home from these stints with the notion to do a take on the croque monsieur using local ingredients. According to Passos, Silva supplemented his invention with a sauce that was heavy on the malagueta, a spicy chili from Angola.

"He said that French girls were hot," explains Passos of Silva's inspiration for both the dish's unique seasoning and its name, the latter of which is the feminine diminutive form of the Portuguese for "French", approximately translatable as "little Frenchie".

"Girls in Portugal didn't wear miniskirt then," adds Passos.

A Regaleira claims to follow Silva's original recipe to this day. To make the sandwich, a thick, palm-sized slice of pão forma, plain white bread, is toasted and topped with a slice of ham, fresh sausage and linguiça, a type of Portuguese smoked sausage:

Linguiça and salsicha fresca, just two of the meats in a francesinha sandwich, Restaurante A Regaleira in Porto, Portugal. Image courtesy of Christopher Wise: www.lifecw.com

This is pressed in a modified sandwich press until the sausages are cooked.

The special grill to make a francesinha sandwich, Restaurante A Regaleira, Porto, Portugal. Image courtesy of Christopher Wise: www.lifecw.com

They're then topped with a slice of roast pork, another slice of toasted bread, and a couple slices of queijo flamengo, a mild cheese, and put back into the press. When heated through, they're then drenched in the molho, a thick, spicy sauce that unites stock, beer, whiskey, port, tomatoes, milk, mustard and chili -- allegedly, that is.

Beer-based tomato sauce poured over a francesinha sandwich, Restaurante A Regaleira, Porto, Portugal. Image courtesy of Christopher Wise: www.lifecw.com

"The sauce is secret," we were told by a waiter. "And not everybody's sauce is the same. If you eat here, the sauce is different than another house."

A beer-based tomato sauce poured over a francesinha sandwich, Restaurante Regaleira, Porto, Portugal. Image courtesy of Christopher Wise: www.lifecw.com

The waiter slid the finished sandwich on our table and said, with confidence, "The best sandwich in the world." And indeed, it is pretty damn good. The francesinha is, despite all its fillings, relatively (again, relatively speaking) small, and voluminous contents merge together in an almost cake- or pie-like way, undoubtedly aided by the rich, binding sauce and all that melted cheese. And if you feel the sandwich is lacking somehow, you can always order a francesinha especial, which comes topped with a fried egg and a side of French fries.

A Regaleira Rua do Bonjardim 87, Porto, Portugal +351 22 200 6465

Cafe Santiago, in business since 1959 and ostensibly Porto's second-most famous place to get a francesinha, can't claim to have invented the sandwich, but they've upped the ante by cramming it with even more stuff. Here's a cross- section:

The list of ingredients for the version of francesinha sold at Cafe Santiago, Porto, Portugal. Image courtesy of Christopher Wise: www.lifecw.com

Between these those slices of bread, you have cheese, ham, beefsteak, cured sausage, fresh sausage and mortadella. Yet the sandwich (shown at the top of this post) has less character, perhaps due to its uniform appearance and distinctly mild sauce that packs none of the spiciness of A Regaleira's.

But it's still, frankly, ridiculous.

Cafe Santiago Rua de Passos Manuel 198, Porto, Portugal +351 22 208 1804 11am-11pm

I've made francesinhas twice now, and my recipe is a blend of the two styles described here: the over-the-top fillings and tidy, symmetrical appearance of Cafe Santiago's version, and the full-on spicy sauce of A Regaleira.

Francesinha

Makes six large sandwiches

Ingredients

For the molho 250g beef bones 300g beef shank 1 small onion, peeled and halved 1 medium carrot, peeled and quartered 6 small dried chilies 2 bay leaves 2 cloves garlic 6 cups water 2 tablespoons butter 1 large onion, peeled and chopped 3 cloves garlic, peeled and minced 1 can (140g) of double strength/doppio tomato paste 1 can (330ml) beer 1 cup milk 1 tablespoon yellow mustard 1 tablespoon piri-piri oil or sauce 2 tablespoons salt 2 tablespoons cornstarch

For the sandwiches 12 slices relatively thick white bread, toasted 6 slices/200g mortadela 6 small/250g fresh sausage links 3 small/130g linguiça 6 small (approximately 100g each) beef steaks, pounded until thin 6 slices/200g ham 24 slices/450g queijo flamengo (or Edam) cheese

Procedure

To a large stockpot over high heat, add beef bones, shank, onion, carrot, chilies, bay leaves, garlic and water. Bring to the bowl, reduce heat and allow to simmer for 1.5 hours.

Strain stock, discarding solids. Set stock aside.

To large stockpot over medium heat, add butter, onion and garlic. Saute, stirring frequently, until onions are soft and translucent, about five minutes. Add tomato paste, stirring frequently, until combined and oil begins to re-emerge, another five minutes. Add reserved stock, beer, milk, mustard, piri-piri, salt and cornstarch. Increase heat slightly, stir to combine and bring to the boil. Reduce heat and allow to simmer for five minutes or so until slightly reduced and somewhat emulsified. Using an immersion blender or via pouring mixture into a blender, blend until thoroughly uniform and emulsified. Return to stockpot and allow mixture to simmer until reduced by nearly approximately a third, is thick, spicy and meaty, approximately 45 minutes to 1 hour.

To a griddle or a frying pan over medium-high heat, add the fresh sausage links and linguiça and fry on both sides until done, about five minutes. Remove and set aside. Increase heat to high, add steaks and sear on both sides, about a minute on each side. Set aside. When cool enough to handle, halve linguiça and sausage links lengthwise.

While molho is still simmering, prepare the sandwiches. On a large oven tray, arrange six slices of toasted bread. Top each with one slice of mortadela, half a linguiça, two halves of a sausage link, one steak, one slice of ham and a slice of bread. Drape four slices of cheese over each sandwich, covering it completely. Assemble sandwiches on tray and bake at a high heat or broil until cheese is soft, but not bubbling, about five minutes.

To serve, put one francesinha in a shallow bowl and pour approximately 3/4 cup of the molho directly over the sandwich.

Jordan

I travel a lot, probably about six months out of the year. But nearly all of that travel is work-related, which for me means going back to the same places time after time to update Lonely Planet guides. It wasn't until April of last year that I came to realise that I hadn't been to a new place -- nor travelled simply for the sake of travel -- in three years.

So, I went to Jordan.

The view of Amman from the Citadel

This was my first visit to the Middle East, a region that couldn't be more different than Southeast Asia in just about every way. I knew a bit about the food, but my only experiences eating it were at relatively generic, pan Middle Eastern restaurants in Thailand and Europe. I was pretty excited to encounter the real thing on its home turf, and I wasn't disappointed.

Flatbreads for sale at a bakery in Amman

I don't have much of a sweet tooth, but if there's one food item I was looking forward to tasting, it was the region's sweets. Luckily in Jordan, I  didn't have to look far, and if a town had only a couple places selling food, one of them was inevitably a shop boasting a huge selection of nutty, crunchy, crispy, syrupy sweets.

Coming from Thailand, it struck me that Middle Eastern sweets are about exotic as it gets, in particular those made with pistachios (unequivocally the best nut):

But of the country's sweets, I, like most visitors, was most taken with knafeh (or kanefe, kunafeh, kunafeh, knafeh, or kunafah). Imagine a crispy, buttery base of fine threads or semolina crumbs topped with a layer of warm mozzarella-like cheese, which is then drizzled with scented syrup and garnished with crushed nuts. That's knafeh.

The most famous vendor of the dish in Amman, if not Jordan, is Habibah:

Like nearly all sweets shops in Jordan, Habibah is to-go only, and customers would carefully escort their foam dish to a nearby square (shown at the top of this post), not doing a lot of talking, but solemnly savouring every bite; I did the same -- on several occasions.

Habibah Al-Malek al-Hussein St

Spring cleaning in As Salt

I also really enjoyed ful (or foul), stewed fava beans, served drizzled with olive oil and sometimes a lemony, garlicky, chili condiment that's not unlike the dip served with seafood in Thailand. I can't read Arabic, but I learned to spot ful by keeping my eyes peeled for the chubby, narrow-necked vessel the beans are cooked in:

Coupled with a warm, floppy flatbread, a few pickles and mint tea, a bowl of ful is one of the world's best breakfasts.

The type of places that serve ful also tend to do felafel, hummous, baba ghanoush and other standard Middle Eastern dishes. This is probably the most common type of restaurant in Jordan, followed closely by the type of place that does skewered, grilled meat served, again, with flatbread:

I ate this meal many times, but the one that stands out was served at a grungy restaurant in As Salt, a small town outside of Amman:

Here, the Syrian and Egyptian staff (just about everybody in Jordan is an immigrant -- not to mention is also extremely friendly and speaks some English) did simply-seasoned, smokey minced lamb and beef kebabs -- nothing terribly unique.

Most interesting was when they took the ubiquitous grilled vegetable sides -- tomato, onion and mild chilies -- and whizzed them in a food processor with a bit of lemon juice and salt. Served as a side, it was somewhere between a slightly tart gazpacho and a smokey salsa, and became a regular in my summer barbecue repertoire.

I also really came to love a mint tea and a nargileh (water pipe), occasionally taken in an fantastically atmospheric tea houses such as this Ottoman Empire-era place in As Salt:

That said, with the exception of the odd fast food or foreign cuisine restaurant, I didn't encounter much of a restaurant or street food scene in Jordan -- at least compared to that of Southeast Asia -- and the above are just about all the types of outside-the-home dining I encountered. In terms of an all-around restaurant with a menu, the best I came across was probably Al-Quds:

Also known as Jerusalem restaurant, and boasting a charmingly old-school vibe, it's here that I tried mansaf, said to be Jordan's national dish:

It takes the form of lamb that's been simmered in a lightly spiced broth with jameed, fermented, dried yogurt, and served over saffron rice, artfully topped with slivered almonds and a thin sheet of dough, and coupled with a bowl of the broth/jameed mixture. The lamb was fall-apart tender and broth was intensely rich, sour and funky all at the same time.

Al-Quds King Al Hussein St 8, Amman 7am-10pm

A few other restaurants I enjoyed:

Fakhr El Din

A photo posted by Austin Bush (@bushaustin) on Apr 15, 2015 at 12:52pm PDT

Housed in a beautiful villa, this is claimed by many to be the best Lebanese restaurant in Amman. We ate kibbeh (raw minced lamb; 6 o'clock in the pic), a salad of a Roquefort-like cheese, an incredibly fresh tabbouleh, Lebanese sausages, a dip of walnuts, and grilled lamb w a spicy chili paste.

Fakhr El Din 2nd circle, Amman

Hashem Restaurant

A photo posted by Austin Bush (@bushaustin) on Apr 9, 2015 at 6:21am PDT

Probably one of the most famous restaurants in Jordan, this busy place does the usual repertoire of felafel, hummous, baba ghanoush and ful.

Hashem Restaurant Al-Amir Mohammed St, Amman 24hr

Haret Jdouna

A photo posted by Austin Bush (@bushaustin) on Apr 15, 2015 at 7:32am PDT

Charming restaurant in Madaba where I had a very good 'kifta sawani', patties of minced lamb in a tart sesame paste sauce with slices of potato and pine nuts, and baked in a wood-burning oven

Haret Jdouna Talat St, Madaba noon-midnight