“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.