Tag Archives: Thailand

by | 03/26/2013 · 3:04 pm

What’s cooking: Aim Och

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“Egg in a pan” at Aim Och in Khon Kaen

There is nothing easier to make in all of Thai street food than kai kata, or “egg in a pan”. Still stinging from our inability to decode Jay Fai’s Byzantine fusion of herbs and spices masquerading as tom yum goong, Chris and I decided to give ourselves a break and do something that is, quite literally, fool-proof.

Kai kata is the Thai version of the Vietnamese version of the American breakfast, said to have been inspired by homesick American GIs during the Vietnam War. In an attempt to replicate the American breakfast standby “ham and eggs”, Vietnamese cooks cracked eggs into “personal-sized” pans, garnished them with Chinese sausages and Vietnamese steamed pork pate (moo yaw) in place of sausages and ham, and cooked them quickly on a stovetop until the whites set. Garnished with a splash of red chili sauce like Sriracha and fish sauce and accompanied by a toasted, buttered bun stuffed with more “sausage and ham”, this no-fuss breakfast combo is quick, easy — and unbelievably satisfying. Best of all, you can let your imagination run riot: anything, anything at all, will work with these eggs. Have a sweet tooth and want to drizzle some maple syrup on it, maybe with a garnish of crispy

bacon? A handful of peas? Maybe some pancetta and sliced fresh chilies? Or maybe a

splash of minced chicken and diced carrots, just like at King Ocha in Udon Thani:

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Kai kata and buttered bun at King Ocha in Udon Thani

There are no rules for this fusion-y adaptation of a Western favorite. Ironically, if you are in the West, you may need to make some substitutions for some hard-to-find ingredients, so you may have to re-substitute those substitutions. Hence our choice to use buttered ceramic ramekins instead of tiny pans, because we aren’t sure how many of those are available back West. If you don’t have an oven, you can make a bain-marie by putting your ramekins in a pan, filling with water up to the middle of the ramekin, and cooking your eggs on the stovetop. However you decide to make it, we have tried to cleave as closely to the “authentic” (circa 2013) basic Isaan-style kai kata as possible.

Kai kata a la Aim Och (makes 2 servings)

What you’ll need:

– 2 ramekins, well-buttered

– 2-4 eggs, depending on size of ramekins

– 1 link Chinese sausage (gunchieng), sliced

– 6 slices moo yaw (Vietnamese steamed pork pate) — baloney works in a pinch

– Two mini-baguettes or soft rolls (for real Thai street food flavor, they should be as sweet as possible)

– Butter (for toasting buns)

– Fish sauce with sliced chilies, Maggi, or Golden Mountain sauce (to taste)

– Sriracha sauce (to taste)

– Salt and pepper (to taste)

To make:

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees Fahrenheit/180 degrees Celsius.

2. Place buns, slightly open and their insides buttered, into a casserole and toast in the oven until warm, edges are light brown and butter is melted. 

3. In a pan, warm slices of Chinese sausage and/or moo yaw until hot to the touch.

4. Crack 1-2 eggs into each buttered ramekin, depending on size. Cook in oven for 5-10 minutes (depending on how well your oven works), until whites are set when you jiggle them and start to pull away slightly from the sides of the ramekin. If you like your eggs more well done (I love runny yolks), wait at least 10 minutes.

5. Take eggs out of oven and garnish with sausages and “ham”. If you have cooked minced meat and/or vegetables, scatter those onto your eggs as well. Season with salt and pepper.

6. Fill toasted buns with slices of “ham” and “sausages”. Serve alongside eggs, and make sure to pass the fish sauce/Maggi and sweet chili sauce. Easy AND delicious.

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by | 03/21/2013 · 4:26 pm

What’s Cooking: Jay Fai

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On the menu at Jay Fai

It was an interesting proposition: turn out some recipes inspired by my favorite street food stalls. Of course, I would never get the exact recipes from these folks, however lovely they are; in the street food world, recipes are family heirlooms, to be guarded as insurance for the next generation.  Instead, the recipes we end up with would be approximations, wild guesses, stabs in the dark — love letters to the originals in the hope that imitation really is the sincerest form of flattery.

To aid my on my quest, I enlist the help of my friend Chris Schultz (http://christao408.xanga.com), one of the best home cooks I know. We would do a total of 15 dishes over the course of three months. Some would be simple, chosen for their (expected) ease. Others would take more work refining. All would, eventually, hopefully, fingers-crossedly, be delicious.

There is no question that Jay Fai (327 Mahachai Rd., 02-223-9384) is one of my favorite street food vendors. A middle-aged lady in a woven beanie and a slash of lipstick, Jay Fai plows through an extensive repertoire of made-to-order favorites, solo and with the help of two searing hot woks. Her fried noodle dishes are to die for: punters frequently argue over which is her best, wavering between her “drunken noodles” (guaythiew pad kee mow, so called because the grease and spice are good hangover remedies) and her crispy noodles in seafood gravy (guaythiew lard na talay). Her crabmeat omelet, currently holding at 900 baht/serving, is a Japanese-inspired eggy roll stuffed with mammoth chunks of white, juicy crabmeat; hers is the only kitchen in town to serve a “dry” congee (jok hang), a gelatinous splay of broken-in rice grains topped with a tumble of shredded ginger and scallion. I could go on.

But it’s possibly her spicy lemongrass soup with prawns (tom yum goong, priced at an astronomical 1,500 baht/bowl) that intrigues me most. It’s a dish that everyone knows, but I suspect few bother to tinker around with. Have you ever made a tom yum? I ask because, despite the “infusion”-style broth that simply calls for throwing a handful of bruised herbs into water at a rolling boil, this soup is hard to excel at.

Boil 6 cups water, toss in a handful of bruised galangal, 7-8 kaffir lime leaves, 4 bruised lemongrass stalks , a shallot or two, a couple of green peppercorn branches and 4 chilies; a few minutes later, throw in 3 Tablespoons fish sauce and at least 3 limes’ worth of juice, take your pan off the heat, and add your 8 cleaned and shelled jumbo shrimp; stir around in the muck until your shrimp blush a deep red, then garnish with coriander leaves — this is tom yum made the traditional way. Yet the flavor is … underwhelming, warmed-over Lean Cuisine after two days in the refrigerator. Where is the heat? Where is the tart? I was missing the fireworks, but without sticking an entire forest of dreck into the broth, what was I to do?

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Jay Fai’s tom yum goong

The verdict: I can’t hope to replicate even half of the flavor Jay Fai gets with her tom yum by doing a straight-up infusion. There is a chili paste in there somewhere. In the coming days, I will pound fresh chilies, garlic, shallots and herbs with my mortar and pestle and see where that gets me; I’ll also roast the chilies, garlic and shallots before pounding a second batch and compare the two. I’ll try another with roasted chili paste (nam prik pao), and in yet another, I might even add a dash of coconut milk. What do you think? There is a grocery store’s worth of places where this can go. 

Until then. The leftovers beckon.

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My tom yum

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Aside

Mr. Right Now

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The khao soy vendor’s kanom jeen nam ngiew

Like a dog at a bone, I am constantly worrying at my love for the northern Thai dish kanom jeen nam ngiew, watching it fray at the edges as I sample dish after watered-down dish, chasing after the What when I don’t have the Where, Who or How. Because, you see, I live in Bangkok, where street food is wonderful, but northern Thai street food sometimes less so.

The Bangkok attitude to the north appears to be how Northeastern Americans view people living in the Southern US. They may be “charming” and “quaint” at best, or characterized as “rural” or “backward” at not-best. Both regions might house poorer residents and nurse chips on their shoulders about being looked down upon by the “educated elite”. The people of both areas might speak more slowly, in voices that might sound like sticky drawls. And both places certainly have incredible food where meat plays a major role, yet their cuisines might be looked at askance by the less adventurous as “weird” (please Google “The Ravenous Guide to Eating Like Elvis”) or just plain bad for you (ditto).

But the stomach-minded — and there are many of us out there — may see this food as achingly exotic. That is the case for me when I’ve been in Bangkok for a while. And although there is plenty of tried-and-true Isaan food to be had (the real stuff, not the sugary red candy posing as grilled chicken or pork shoulder at some Bangkok stalls) thanks to the city’s many Isaan residents, for some reason (and no, I don’t really know why this is), northern Thai food here is not as well represented.

So when a northern Thai food stall turns up just around the corner from the end of my street, in a barren expanse of concrete next to what appears to be a government compound, it’s exciting to me, the way a barbecue place in New York might be exciting to someone else. And it might not really be the same as what you’d find in its home setting (think of that NY barbecue place), but it’s good enough. Meet khao lad gang (curry rice) stall Khao Soy Chiang Mai (71 Ajnarong Rd., 02-672-7711) and its collection of northern Thai specialties like gang hang lay (Burmese-style pork stew), gang ho (northern Thai-style goulash), sai oua (northern Thai sausages), nam prik ong (pork-and-tomato chili dip), excellent larb moo kua (minced pork salad), and of course, khao soy and kanom jeen nam ngiew, without which northern Thai street food would be irreparably hobbled. Competent renditions all, with some green curry and shredded fish curry to go with your kanom jeen when you’re just not feeling the northern Thai food at the mo.

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The sign for Khao Soy Chiang Mai

It’s that little watering hole in the desert. The exit from a crowded dance floor. The guy who invites you out at 6:30pm on a Friday night. It’s not the end-all be-all. But it’s good enough for now.

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by | 02/22/2013 · 10:51 am