by | 07/18/2013 · 2:24 pm

What’s Cooking: Bamee Slow

My stab at "bamee kai", or egg egg noodles

My stab at “bamee kai”, or egg egg noodles

It’s on. Stress has taken hold, and I am feeling overwhelmed. As deadlines loom and previously-unforeseen hitches suddenly rear their little heads, I find myself reacting in strange ways. Please don’t be alarmed. If you see me staring at you, I am not contemplating you for dinner. I don’t see you at all. If you are foolish enough to say something to me, do not be startled if I spout even more rubbish than usual. I am trying to work something out.

In my present state, I have discovered some people enjoy my company more than usual. These are twisted and strange people. They are also food lovers. Because, in an attempt to keep from creeping as many people out as I usually do, I have retreated to the kitchen, where I can be as weird as I want and as brave as I like. It’s all OK, you see. My inevitable failures here won’t be as heartbreaking. And the results, as pitiful as they are, can be shared by everyone.

Today, I am attempting to replicate one of my favorite comfort foods, the bamee kai (egg noodles with, um, egg) from Bamee Slow, officially referred to as  “Bamee Giew Moo Song Krueang” (open after 8pm at the entrance to Ekamai soi 19). Diners who like these noodles enough to queue up for them — and Thais have a hard time lining up for anything — affectionately call this place “Bamee Slow” because the khun lung (old “uncle”) manning the stall makes every bowl one by one, and it can take up to half an hour to get your order (for the record, the longest I have waited is 22 minutes). He has since stepped back from the soup vat and his daughter has taken over, and I am told she is a bit faster. But their noodles are as popular as ever.

What I love are the al dente, silky noodles, coated with the unctuous yellow yolk that eventually spills out of every unlucky egg plonked into each bowl. Slices of red pork, sturdy bits of Chinese kale, crumbled minced pork bits: none are immune from the reach of the yolk. This is what I am trying to capture, in my own small way.

Before starting, you need to make sure you have a big enough strainer that will hold all your noodles while ensuring that all the starch washes away, so that your egg noodles are not a smooshed-up Jack Sparrow-like bird’s nest, rendering your entire bowl a sad mess like the remnants of my career. Also, like the people at Bamee Slow, you should make up each bowl one-by-one: it really does make for better noodles.

I boiled a handful of pork soup bones in water with some garlic and white peppercorns for an hour, skimming periodically, and then flavored the broth with soy sauce and roasted chili paste (the ingredient that I think lends the toxic orange color to Bamee Slow’s broth). However, if you don’t have the time or inclination for this, pan-fry some minced pork with or without pork soup bones first, then cover with water and boil for a few minutes before starting. Or, simply get a couple of pork bouillon cubes into some hot water and proceed without delay. It’s all up to you.

Bamee Slow’s egg noodles (makes 2 servings)

– 200 g pork soup bones

– 500 ml water

-2 garlic cloves

– 5-10 white peppercorns, depending on how peppery you like it

– 1 tsp nam prik pow (roasted chili paste)

– 1 tsp salt

– 3 Tbs soy sauce

– 200 g minced pork

– 200 g fresh egg noodles

– 4 stalks Chinese broccoli or kale

– 2 eggs, soft-boiled (boiled for 3-4 minutes), cooled in an ice bath, and peeled

– Sugar, chili powder, fish sauce, white vinegar (for garnish)

To make:

1. Boil first four ingredients for an hour, skimming periodically.

2. Season with soy sauce, salt, roasted chili paste and more white pepper. Adjust to your taste.

3. Add minced pork and allow to boil for a few minutes until pork is cooked, skimming scum off of surface.

4. Add your greens.

5. Place half of your noodles in a strainer and immerse in the broth, skimming more off the surface if needed. Wait 2-3 minutes for noodles to “cook” and lose their starch.

6. Place in a bowl and ladle broth with minced pork (but without pork bones) over the noodles. Garnish with egg and greens and, if you have it, a few slices of Chinese-style barbecued red pork.

7. Serve alongside sugar, chili powder, fish sauce, white vinegar (with or without sliced or smashed chilies) and ground peanuts, if you like.

 

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by | 07/01/2013 · 10:04 am

That time of year again

Big Bite Bangkok

The scene at last year’s Big Bite BKK

Like taxes, like school, like that rumble in your tummy … the time for Big Bite is coming ’round again like clockwork. This year promises to be at least as fun as last year — even without yours truly manning the chilli dog stand.

We will be enjoying the culinary stylings of folks like Appia, Opposite Mess Hall and Urban Pantry, as well as treats of a more liquid nature from Twist and The Alchemist. Even better, Monsoon Winery has agreed to sponsor us, so you can rest assured that there will be plenty of quality wine on offer too! Donations from the event benefit In Search of Sanuk.

What: Big Bite Bangkok

When: Sunday, July 14, 11am-2pm

Where: Maduzi Hotel

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by | 06/28/2013 · 3:15 pm

What’s Cooking: Aunt Tongsri’s house

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Green beef curry at Aunt Tongsri’s house

Led Zeppelin is one of the greatest bands in rock history. This pretty much cannot be disputed, although I am occasionally struck by people’s ignorance of this band’s contributions to modern music (I’m mainly thinking of you, Drunken Black Sabbath Fan in Hong Kong). Yet there are people — folks who know music, and aren’t just listening to Coldplay on repeat because they can’t be bothered — who dislike Led Zeppelin for their inherent flashiness, or because their music is “all about showing off”. Now that is just mind-boggling to me. Um, what? Do you mean they should be more mediocre? Oh, OK. Please, guys, stop being excellent. Slow your roll, William Shakespeare. Just make your point and move on. Oh, and you, Pavarotti, please pipe down. You are making the rest of us look bad.

What people seem to want today, what would appear to mark you out as One of Us, is subtlety and restraint, a testing of your willingness to throw a neutral-color-washed, Fair Trade organic cotton wet blanket over your own exuberances, your own rages — all in the name of great good taste. Flying in the face of all that Banana Republic-mandated conformity is this music: Robert Plant’s banshee wail, John Bonham’s Godzilla stomp, Jimmy Page’s ominously circling riffs, John Paul Jones’s … something.

Certainly, Thai food can be subtle and restrained — that is, after all, the point of “royal Thai cuisine”: beautifully-prepared Thai dishes with all the bones and pits taken out, made for a “harmonious” palate that refuses to skew to any extreme in flavor. I have never been a fan of this cooking philosophy, even though this balance is what most Thai cooks aspire towards: the fine point between sweet, salty, sour, spicy, and bitter. Instead, I want to be hit over the head with something (this is a metaphor).  

Yong, who has cooked for my husband’s aunt Tongsri since she was 13 (she is now 57), is basically a Bonzo with the mortar and pestle. Arduously put-together curry pastes are just a thing of the moment for this woman, something to do in her free time before she prepares real dinner for the family. One of her best-known specialties is gaeng kiew waan, or green curry, which she almost always prepares with beef. The result: unctuous, sweet and salty, but full of rattle-you-around-the-throat flavor, especially with the handful of bird’s eye chilies she flings onto the curry as garnish. The next day is even better: the meat has almost disintegrated and the chilies have mellowed and soaked up all the soup, gushing coconut milk as you bite into them. Do not omit the bird’s eye chilies!

Making this curry is hard. I will tell you up front now that I am not the cooking equivalent of Bonzo, or Keith Moon, or even the dude who played at the last wedding you attended. So I will be making do with a commercially-made green curry paste base when I try this recipe without Yong. But if you feel up to it and can source these ingredients (the addition of grachai, or wild ginger, is integral to this recipe), feel free to rock on.

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The finished paste, alongside some of the curry ingredients

Yong’s Green Beef Curry (for 4 people)

– 1 handful (1/2 cup) shallots

– 1/2 cup garlic

– 3 Tbs lemongrass, sliced

– 1 kg stewing beef with fat attached

– 2 Tbs wild ginger (grachai)

– 2 Tbs galangal

– 1 Tb kaffir lime rind, chopped

– 1 cup holy basil

– 1/4 cup prik chee fah, or green Thai chilies

– 1 Tb bird’s eye chilies (leave some for garnish)

– 1/2 cup baby eggplant (optional, as this tends to water down the curry)

– 1 Tb shrimp paste

– 2-3 Tbs palm sugar

– 4-5 kaffir lime leaves, torn (for garnish, optional)

– 3 look jan and dok jan (I DON’T KNOW WHAT THIS IS IN ENGLISH), ground alongside 1 Tb coriander seed and 1/2 Tb cumin

– 1 Tb salt

– 1 kg coconut milk, separated into “head” (thick creamy top) and “tail” (watery juice)

To make:

1. Stew beef in coconut milk “tail” for one hour.

2. For paste, pound galangal and kaffir lime rind with salt.

3. Add lemongrass to mortar.

4. Add chilies, but can omit bird’s eye chilies if you don’t want it too hot.

5. Add garlic, shallots and wild ginger.

6. Add shrimp paste.

7. Take finished paste and heat in pan with a couple of ladlefuls of coconut milk that have been used to stew the beef.

8. Add spice mix (dok jan, look jan, cumin and coriander seeds).

9. Wait for coconut milk to “break” and oil to reach the surface. The paste will start looking like this:

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10. Add a few more ladlefuls of coconut milk until you get the consistency you want.

11. Take paste off heat.

12. Add meat and coconut milk “head”.

13. Add palm sugar.

14. Add basil and baby eggplants, if using.

15. Garnish with chilies and kaffir lime leaves.

16. Eat with roti (like its Indian namesake, but flakier), kanom jeen (fermented rice noodles) and, if you like, pickled ginger.

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