Bangkok Glutton

My father just turned 75, and to celebrate that day (after a COVID-caused delay) he booked out the restaurant Maan Muang, where my family believes the best Northern Thai food in the city is served. Being a Chiang Rai native, my father of course believes he is the expert on this subject, and that his hometown (and my birthplace, incidentally) serves local cuisine of a far superior quality, flavor-wise, to the more generic Chiang Mai. (Although the people at Maan Muang hail from Lampang, not Chiang Rai, I feel obliged to add).

I do love Maan Muang, although I would personally stick to the dishes that are, well, meant to go with sticky rice, and not the noodle dishes like khao soi (curried Northern Thai-style noodles) or kanom jeen nam ngiew (fermented rice noodles in a minced pork stew).

The sticky rice at Maan Muang is red and mildly glutinous, treading the fine line between not too loose and not too gummy. This rice is a staple in the North and Northeast, where food is commonly rolled up into a ball with fingers (an act called pun khao or “rolling rice”) and dipped into the stew, soup, relish, salad or strip of meat (already parceled onto your own plate, of course) of your choice. Food scholars say sticky rice (khao niew) is and has always been considered the staple of the plebs, whereas jasmine rice (khao suoy, or “beautiful rice”) is the purview of the aristocrat. That may be so, but if I had to choose between the two, I would always choose sticky rice.

Many people think that sticky rice is a simple affair made in a rice cooker, but in my household, where this dish can make or break a meal, it is always cooked traditionally, in a huad or woven basket, set over a pot of boiling water and topped with a lid. It’s perfect for allowing air to circulate between the rice grains, ensuring that the grains are not soggy, and for grabbing at each end and tossing, mid-cook.

A traditional Thai sticky rice steamer

But if you don’t have access to a huad, don’t despair. You can simply use a fine-mesh sieve, or a traditional steamer lined with cheesecloth. For the purposes of my upcoming book, I used a sieve, which the French very un-P.C.-ly call a chinois. 

But before you get to that point, you have to soak your sticky rice grains overnight in room temperature water (or in boiling hot water for 20-30 minutes before cooking). Drain and wash three times before pouring a potful of boiling hot water to cover.

Stir grains to keep them from sticky together for 5 minutes or until grains are slightly translucent. Drain and set to steam in your sieve or lined steamer for 20-30 minutes over a boiling pot of water. Cover with a lid big enough to cover all the grains. If there is a gap between the edge of the pot and the lid because of the sieve, set a towel over the lid but beware of setting the towel on fire.

After 10 minutes, take off the lid and toss the grains or give them a good stir.

After 20-30 minutes (or when the grains are tender), spread over a wet flat surface like a tray to cool, making sure to turn occasionally with a rice paddle in order to get rid of trapped steam. This ensures the rice is not soggy.

Your rice is now ready to eat. If you’re not ready, put it in a bowl and cover loosely with plastic wrap, or even better, in your woven sticky rice holder, which has holes that allow steam to escape, but are not too big that the sticky rice will dry out. For such a simple food, it can be a bit temperamental.

Enjoy your sticky rice! One of my favorite meals on earth is a gob of this with fried chicken and a good dollop of a garlicky, heady chili dip like nam prik tha dang (red-eye chili dip), especially if it comes from Midnight Fried Chicken in Chiang Mai.  

One of the few good things about the global pandemic — and I mean, very few — is that we are now doing so many more road trips, discovering places we had never gone to before. One of those places is Phatthalung, a southern province in the “tail” of Thailand that gets less notice than its neighbors because it is landlocked.

Despite its landlocked location, it is still famous for its fishing and water attractions, thanks to the Songkhla lake it shares with Songkhla province to the east. One of the must-see things to do when you’re a tourist in Phatthalung is to take a sunrise tour of the traditional wooden fishing traps on the lake, built like oil rigs on spindly sticks (or in some cases, steel) and scattered at various intervals across the lake like leaves. When the fisherman pushes down on the lever, lifting the giant net up into the air, it is filled with freshwater fish that in a few hours will be deep-fried and slathered in a green mango slaw or steamed with lime and herbs. The fishermen do this all day, from sun-up to sun-down, in a bucolic setting where lily pads grow in chaotic profusion and the water is so calm that the long-tail boats leave a wake that resembles the creasing of a silk sheet.

But I’m here for the food. Not surprisingly, one of the major ingredients featured here are water lily stems, either stir-fried quickly with black peppercorns or oyster sauce, or tossed lightly in a spicy-tart salad.

The lily stems are light and refreshing in the summer heat, and perfectly soak up the broth or sauce of any curry or stir-fry that they are thrown into. They are like the best guests at any dinner party, able to get along with anyone, making everything feel less serious and weighty.

Another featured ingredient are the tiny dried fish, called “baer” fish in the local dialect, which are either deep-fried with turmeric or served in yet another spicy salad, a perfect accompaniment to a cold beer.

Don’t forget the snails, though, in case you were thinking of doing that. These homely gastropods may make you feel icky things when you watch them making their way slowly along the driveway, but when they find their way into a curry, they suddenly become Troy and Abed offering you a guest spot on their morning show.

And finally, there are the ants. I did not have ants in Phatthalung, but I did have them — for the first time in a thin coconut curry called “gang kati” — along with their eggs and a generous portion of local “mieng” leaves in neighboring Krabi in a restaurant that we just happened upon en route to Phuket. Restaurants like these are all over the south, serving lovingly made home cooking with all local ingredients, and I wish I could have had more time with them.

While the ant eggs are mostly tasteless, added for their springy texture, the ants themselves are quite tart, counterpoints to the sweet coconut broth. We had them with tiny fish deep-fried with turmeric, seabass stir-fried with holy basil and hella chilies, a turmeric soup with free-range chicken (“gai baan”), and a sour curry (“gang som”) of farm-raised frogs (called “gob lieng”. We were told that the wild-caught frogs, or “gob tong”, are tastier but not available). Of course, nearly everything was ear-ringingly spicy. It’s a small price to pay for the cost of admission, but a price nevertheless the morning after.

Thai food sometimes has terrible names. Of course, there is always the prik ki nu, translated literally to “mouse shit chili”, but which in English goes by the far more urbane term “bird’s eye chili”. There are the kai luk kuey, known as “son-in-law eggs”, a delicious dish in which the main ingredient is boiled and then deep-fried before being smothered in a tamarind sauce; the story about the origins of this dish is probably untrue but entertaining nonetheless.

Then there is nam prik ki ga, translated literally to “crow’s poo chili dip”. The reason behind this name has never really been explained properly to me, except to emphasize that the colors in this dip are red, green and white, and that the ingredients are pounded roughly, just enough so that they stick together to form a paste. It is also usually served warm. This, apparently, is enough to make it resemble crow’s poo, but I honestly have not examined it enough to know for sure. I have only been shat on by pigeons, not crows. Pigeon poo is much more liquid and the colors are only black and white. It is, however, also warm.

This chili dip has become something of a family favorite. We always have it for lunch with grilled chicken and/or beef and some sticky rice, with a stir-fried vegetable dish or two. My mother-in-law makes huge batches at the end of the year to give out as New Year’s presents. The flavor is bright and bold, and ideal for people who are wary of the swampy quality that the typical shrimp paste can bring to the tastebuds.

Lauren and I are in the middle of testing this particular recipe; we are wondering whether jalapeño chilies, roasted and peeled, will make a good substitute for bird’s eye chilies. I made the above, which I loved when brightened up with extra lime juice at the end. It’s awesome simply with wedges of hard-boiled egg, some fresh cucumber, and rice, but you can also spruce it up with some blanched wing beans, knotted long beans and cabbage.

Nam prik ki ga (For 2-4 people)

– 10 small garlic cloves (Thai garlic really does lend a better flavor and aroma, but if you don’t have it, use 3-4 big cloves of Western garlic)

– 6 small shallots (again, the Thai ones are superior) or 4 big

– 3 big long green chili peppers (mildly spicy, the ones you use for nam prik num or Northern Thai young green chili dip)

– 5 small bird’s eye chilies (deseeded if concerned about spiciness, I did half-and-half)

 

Before roasting these ingredients, please prick chilies with a fork or they will explode. Roast at full whack in oven until blackened (or in pan without oil). When blackened, peel big peppers and cut into thirds.

With mortar and pestle, pound garlic and shallots until broken into pieces, and add chilies gradually. Add 1 tsp fish sauce and 2 tsps lime juice, and mix gently with pestle. Taste, then add palm sugar (up to 1 tsp) if the flavors are too aggressive.

Add half a piece of cooked chicken breast, shredding it into the mortar, and then mix into the dip with a spoon. Taste again and add another squirt of lime juice if the mix is not bright enough.