How To Make: Saa

Yesterday, Phii Laa, my neighbour, came over with the tray of ingredients pictured above and a desire to share her recipe for saa, a local type of yam or Thai-style ‘salad’. I was excited about this because in Mae Hong Son there are several variations on the standard Thai yam that I've yet to get my head around: there’s the type I mentioned in the previous blog, that uses par-boiled veggies; there’s sanaap, which apparently combines par-boiled veggies and a rather different dressing; and finally there’s saa, which appears to revolve around fresh greens.

The most common greens used to make saa range from tender mango or tamarind leaves to shredded lettuce. In this recipe Phii Laa used yot thua lantao, the tender young leaves from a type of pea, which she has growing in front of her house. If you're making this at home, I reckon you could use just about any salad-type green.

Regarding the other ingredients, keep in mind that the type of sesame oil people in Mae Hong Son use is made from raw, not roasted sesame seeds. The flavour is significantly subtler, and if you can only get the more ubiquitous Chinese-style roasted sesame oil, I’d suggest diluting it with equal parts plain vegetable oil.

And many cooks here protein up their saa with bits of plaa thoo, steamed mackerel, but a few still do it the old-school way: with bits of deep-fried pork rind.

Saa (Shan/Thai Yai-style yam using fresh greens)

Fresh greens, sliced thinly, 1 large bunch Shallots, sliced thinly, 3 Tomatoes, seeded and sliced thinly, 3 Steamed mackerel or pork rinds Roasted peanuts, ground coarsely, 3 Tbsp Nam phrik phong, 1 Tbsp (see previous blog for a description of this ingredient) Sesame oil/garlic oil, 1 Tbsp Salt, to taste

Combine greens, shallots, tomatoes and fish or pork rinds, in a large bowl.  Top with peanuts, a pinch of salt, oil and nam phrik phong:

Mix thoroughly by hand:

and season to taste. Serve on its own as a snack or with rice.

How To Make: Khao som & yam thua

I’m in very good culinary company here in Mae Hong Son. As soon the owner of the house I’m renting learned that I have an interest in the local food, she started bringing me local sweets and snacks on a daily basis. This morning she went out of her way to bring me a local dish of sticky rice steamed with coconut milk and turmeric and served with local-style meatballs (more on this later), something that I had mentioned the previous day. My next-door neighbour, Phii Laa, is equally generous, and possibly even more enthusiastic. Once she learned that I was interested in the local eats she’s been in my kitchen every morning since, sharing a new recipe.

The first recipe Phii Laa shared is one I only came across recently. Khao som literally means  ‘sour rice’, and is local a dish of balls of rice made sour by the addition of tomato and tamarind. The dish is traditionally served with yam thua, ‘bean salad’, the recipe for which can also be adapted to make any sort of local salad where the main ingredient, which here can range from tender fern shoots (a popular local ingredient) to sour leaves, is first par-boiled. In my next blog I’ll demonstrate how to make a saa, another type of local salad centred around fresh (as opposed to par-boiled) greens or veggies.

The ingredients required for khao som and yam thua are pretty basic and I imagine all are generally available even in the west, except for nam phrik phong:

a mixture of thua nao (disks of dried soybean), dried chili, salt and MSG, all ground to a fine powder. If you’re determined, I’d suggest just substituting a pinch of finely ground dried chili flakes and some salt, although the dish will be missing a truly local flavour in thua nao.

And if you haven’t done it before, making crispy deep-fried garlic and garlic oil is a snap:

Simply get your hands the smallest cloves of garlic you can find, chop them up coarsely (skin and all), and simmer in a generous amount of oil over medium heat until the garlic is just beginning to become crispy. When this happens remove mixture to a heatproof container and allow to cool.

And as always, ingredient measurements below are estimated; Phii Laa, like most Thai cooks, doesn’t use measuring utensils, instead cooking by taste and feel.

Khao som & yam thua (Sour Shan-style rice and bean salad)

Uncooked rice, 2 cups Strained tamarind pulp, 1 cup Chopped tomatoes, 2 cups Salt, 1 tsp Turmeric powder, ½ tsp Sugar, 1 Tbsp

French beans Shrimp paste, 1 Tbsp Nam phrik phong, 2 Tbsps Ground roasted white sesame seeds, 4 Tbsp Shallots, sliced, 4 Garlic oil & crispy deep-fried garlic Deep-fried dried chilies

Cook rice with at least three cups of water (the rice is supposed to have a soft consistency). When cooked, allow to cool slightly.

Combine tamarind pulp, tomatoes, salt, turmeric and sugar in a wok over low heat. Simmer, stirring occasionally, until reduced to a thick paste:

about 10 minutes. Set aside.

Prepare beans by removing the strings and chopping:

Par-boil beans until just cooked, about a minute, and shock in cold water. Set aside.

In a wok over medium heat, dissolve shrimp paste in ¼ cup of water. When shrimp paste is fully incorporated, add nam phrik phong and sesame. Combine thoroughly and turn off heat. Allow to cool slightly, add sliced shallots and beans and mix thoroughly. Remove to a serving dish and top with crispy fried garlic and garlic oil.

When rice is cool enough to handle, combine ¾ of the tamarind mixture with cooked rice.

Taste and season with remaining tamarind mixture and/or salt if necessary.

Coating hands in a bit of the garlic oil, shape rice mixture into golf ball-sized balls:

Arrange on a plate and drizzle with plenty of crispy garlic, oil and deep-fried chilies.

Serve dish, as illustrated at the top of this post, on individual plates with a generous serving of the bean salad.

Khao ya koo

Khao ya koo is the Shan/Thai Yai name for a type of sweetened sticky rice. Other than simply being a sweet snack, the dish has strong associations with celebration, as it's only made on certain holidays. It also has ties with community, and as you'll see, is one distinctly local method of making merit (kwaa loo in the local dialect).

The process begins by steaming lots of recently-harvested sticky rice:

At the same time, blocks of raw sugarcane sugar are melted with coconut cream:

When throughly blended, the sugarcane mixture is added to the still-warm sticky rice:

The rice/sugar mixture is then stirred with large wooden paddles (also shown at the top of this post):

I only saw men doing this, and the process took as long as a half hour, giving the rice a creamy, almost oily texture. Towards the end of the stirring process (called kuan in Thai) crushed peanuts are added:

The rice is then allowed to cool slightly, and is divided into plastic bags or banana leaf packages:

And it is at this point that the merit part takes place. The bags of khao ya koo are then loaded onto trucks:

and the villagers drive through the various districts of Mae Hong Son, handing packets of the rice out to everybody they see:

In recent years this has been accompanied by a parade:

But the most important thing is still giving (and getting) that rice:

How To Make: Thua phoo khua

This is a Thai Yai/Shan dish that one sees for sale all over Mae Hong Son, and it combines ingredients essential to virtually every local dish: soybeans (both in the form of tofu and thua nao, disks of dried soybeans), garlic, tomatoes and turmeric. However, just like any other dish, there appears to be several different ways to make thua phoo khua. My neighbour claims that thua nao has no place in the chili paste of this dish, and that she normally uses fresh chilies. The ladies selling meat in the morning market told me that I have to use thua nao and dried chilies... I've followed the latter method, combined with a recipe from a Thai-language cookbook printed in Mae Hong Son.

Regarding the other ingredients, the people here prefer the small, slightly sour tomatoes – use these if you can get them. Also, try to get the firmest tofu you can get. And in place of thua nao you could use a tablespoon of tao jiaw, the salted soybean condiment popular all over Southeast Asia and China.

Thua Phoo Khua

Chili paste ingredients:

Garlic, 2 Tbsp Shallots, 4 Tbsp Dried chili, 25 small chilies Thua nao, ½ disk

Other ingredients:

Quartered cherry tomatoes, 2 cups Oil, 2 Tbsp Turmeric, 1 tsp Ground pork, ½ cup Firm tofu, squared, 2 cups Salt

Combine the chili paste ingredients in a mortar and pestle and grind until you get a fine paste. Add sliced tomatoes to chili paste mixture and blend thoroughly.

Heat oil in a wok over medium heat. Add turmeric and blend thoroughly with oil. Add curry paste mixture and simmer over medium heat until tomatoes have broken up completely and oil starts to emerge, about five minutes.

Add pork and cook, stirring, until no longer raw:

Add tofu and blend with curry paste mixture. Don’t be afraid to allow the tofu to crumble, although you don’t want a mush:

If the mixture becomes too dry, add water. Continue to cook until tofu is slightly broken up and heated through, about five minutes. Season to taste with salt. People here in Mae Hong Son will also sometimes add a bit of cha om, a pungent leafy vegetable, at the end.

Serve with hot rice.

Screw Provence

Particularly among middle-aged people from the English-speaking world, there seems to be a longstanding fascination with Provence, the southern French région. I’m sure Provence is very lovely, and fits many folks' preconceived notion of a beautiful, rural paradise (although I think eventually I would grow weary of the scent of lavender), but when I recently found myself with a great deal of writing work and a desire to complete it in an idyllic setting, southern France didn't even come to mind. Naturally, I chose Mae Hong Son. It was an easy choice, really. Mae Hong Son is beautiful:

The hills surrounding Mae Hong Son -- a three-minute bike ride from my house

has its own interesting cuisine:

At Mae Hong Son's evening market

and brilliant weather:

A typical misty Mae Hong Son Morning -- the view over my backyard

And so far it’s actually lived up to its status as my own personal Provence. I start each day with a chilly early-morning drive through a mountain valley to the morning market where I down a bowl of thua oon or khanom jeen nam ngiaw. If I’m thinking of cooking later that day, I may do a bit of shopping at the market (the only 'supermarkets' in Mae Hong Son sell dry goods), but regardless will almost always buy several banana-leaf packets of Thai Yai sweets from my favourite vendor. I don’t have Internet at the house I’m renting, so I’ll spend some mornings online at Coffee Morning, followed by lunch at Mae Sri Bua or Baan Phleng. By the time I drive back home, the heat of the sun has cleared the mist and I can see the blue sky and mountains that surround the town. The rest of my days are spent working in a covered patio adjacent to the rice fields shown above.

Honestly, I can’t imagine anywhere else in the world I’d rather be right now. I’ll be here until the end of February (maybe longer?), and will be blogging about all of the above, and more. So bear with me if I tend to gush about Mae Hong Son, but I’m really loving it and feel that there’s some interesting stuff here worth sharing.

Lim Lao Ngow

The tongue-twistingly difficult name of this street stall is Chinese in origin, appropriate for a stall on the outer edges of Bangkok’s Chinatown. I was escorted there by David Thompson, who knows the neighbourhood a lot better than I’d expected.

According to David, the highlight here is not the the fish dumplings nor the charming atmosphere (we sat on plastic stools near a drain) but rather the noodles:

And I’d have to agree. Despite the stall’s claims regarding their fishballs ('The fishballs that jump', whatever that means), they tasted stale and manufactured. The noodles on the other hand were flat, firm and flavourful. We both found that they had a lot in common with the noodles at Mangkorn Khao, where we had eaten previously that evening.

Lim Lao Ngow Th Songsawat 6pm-midnight

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On The Streets of Ayuthaya, Three Guys Keep It Real

  The title of this post is a take on the oft-cited 2005 New York Times article by R. W. Apple Jr. about dining in Bangkok. In the article, the late journalist explores the food of the capital with Bob Halliday, a 30-year resident of Bangkok. In my version, I'm accompanied by friend, chef and blogger Hock, and friend, chef and author David Thompson (both of whom, incidentally, work in restaurants mentioned in the Apple article), in our own effort to keep it 'real' on the streets of Ayuthaya. To this extent, Hock brought a bottle of prosecco and some prissy French nectar drinques, David took along his wit and historical knowledge, and I brought my camera to document part of the day.

Our first effort in Ayuthaya-style realism was Lung Lek, a 'boat noodle' restaurant just across from the ruins. The restaurant was as busy as I've ever seen it:

which unfortunately had a negative impact on the food. As David illustrates below, the noodles required substantial seasoning, something usually not necessary for the inherently rich dish:

The next step in our plan was to go to Pom Phet, a quiet shaded spot overlooking river and ruins, unfold our mats, and indulge in the pleasure of getting drunk somewhere other than Bangkok. Unfortunately there was construction underway at Pom Phet and virtually every other riverside ruin. So we headed directly to a riverside restaurant where we wished Hock had brought more prosecco, and where David and I fought over the fattiest bits of pork.

From there we headed next door to Baan Wacharachai where we spent the next few hours on a moored boat, eating, talking and drinking. The latter caused me to forget to document this part of the day, but the highlights were Baan Wacharachai's wonderful smoked snakehead fish, watching boats pass by on the river, and teasing Hock.

It was somehow decided that the only appropriate dish to end the day was of roti with condensed milk. This being Thailand, we naturally stopped off to buy another kind of roti on our way to eat the roti:

There are several shops selling roti say mai along the strip of road opposite Ayuthaya's main hospital and David chose the most popular one, at which he had to wait a good 20 minutes:

Free samples helped Hock to pass the time:

And then it was on to our final destination, Ayuthaya's night market. Where, as a pre-dessert snack, we ordered beef mataba:

Undeniably real and uncomfortably full, we headed back to Bangkok.

Khao khluk kapi Tha Phra Athit

Lying just steps from the famous backpacker district of Th Khao San, you'd think that there would be much in the way of authentic Thai food on Th Phra Athit. But there are actually some pretty interesting places to eat. My most recent find is a tiny streetside stall that serves only three dishes, the most famous of which is khao khluk kapi, rice cooked with shrimp paste and served with a variety of delicious toppings -- a dish mentioned many times previously on these pages.

Pictured above, the dish incorporates (starting at 12 o'clock and moving clockwise) kun chiang, deep-fried Chinese sausage; deep-fried dried chilies; lime; long beans and cha om, a pungent herb; sliced fresh chilies; sliced shallots; shredded green mango; muu waan, 'sweet pork', pork belly that has been simmered with fish sauce and palm sugar; and in the centre, shredded omelet and dried shrimp deep-fried until crispy. There's just about every flavour and texture you could ever want, and served with a bowl of hot broth, the dish is a tasty, healthy and balanced one-dish meal.

Another dish made here is khao phat nam phrik long ruea:

This is fried rice served with nam phrik long ruea, a pork and chili-based 'dip', par-boiled veggies, fresh herbs and other side dishes. The chili dip is wonderfully tart from the addition of a kind of citrus fruit, and I love the sides of salted egg (11 o'clock) and cha om,the herb mentioned above, which in this case is served in the form of a dense omelet (12 o'clock).

The third dish they were serving that day was khanom jeen saw naam, fresh rice noodles served with a coconut cream-based dressing. On previous visits I've also seen nam phrik kapi, a shrimp paste-based dish served much the same as the dish above.

The stall is open during lunch, dishes will set you back a whopping 30B (less than $1) and there are English-language signs, probably to facilitate the odd backpacker who dares to explore the gastronmic depths that lie beyond Khao San-style 'pad thai'.

Khao khluk kapi Tha Phra Athit Th Phra Athit Lunch

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Lephet thoke

Lephet thoke is a popular Burmese dish based around pickled tea leaves. The sour, slightly bitter leaves are mixed with shredded cabbage, sliced tomatoes, crunchy deep-fried beans, nuts and peas, a splash of oil and pungent slices of chili and garlic. The dish is versatile: it can be a snack, an appetiser or a palate cleanser. Allegedly it's also a stimulant; a Burmese waiter in Mae Sot, Thailand, told me that I'd be up all night if I ate too much lephet thoke.

I've had some interesting experiences eating this dish. Once, several years ago, I ordered the dish at a street stall in downtown Yangon. The woman mixed the dish, in the traditional manner, with her bare hand, squeezing and squelching the mixture thoroughly. After serving me the lephet thoke, she then stared at me while I ate it, licking her fingers the entire time.

I recall that the lephet thoke was tart from the tea leaves and crunchy from the fried peas.

Another time, on a boat on the Irrawaddy River, I was ordering a dish of lephet thoke while a drunk man started screaming at me in Burmese. Another man nearby was kind enough to translate for me. "He says he hates foreigners and wants to kill you," the man said, without a hint of emotion.

The lephet thoke was rich with oil and had thick slices of raw garlic, which I loved.

Compared to previous dishes, the lephet thoke above, consumed in Mae Sot, was uneventful. Unlike in Burma, the dish was served with little or no oil, and the garlic and chilies were served on the side. Nonetheless, the dish seemed to be just about everywhere in Mae Sot, not surprising given how many Burmese now live there. I was able to eat the dish at four different restaurants and even brought some pickled tea and crunchy nuts back home to Bangkok.

A couple more pics from Mae Hong Son and Tak

At Mae Sot's morning market, Tak

Doi Phra That Doi Kong Moo, Mae Hong Son

At Mae Sot's morning market, Tak

Burmese monks, Mae Sam Laep, Mae Hong Son

Doi Phra That Doi Kong Moo, Mae Hong Son

Mae Sam Laep, Mae Hong Son

Breakfast in Mae Sot

Mae Sot, a bustling city near the Burmese border in Tak province is mostly populated by Burmese refugees. Many of those who live in town are Muslim, and have had a huge influence on the city's food scene. In particular, along the street that runs south of the city's main mosque, you'll find several Burmese/Muslim-owned teashops:

They were heaps of fun, and served dishes you'd be hard-pressed to find anywhere else in Thailand.

Although roti, crispy fried pancakes, are available just about everywhere these days, it's still hard to find a good one. The guy pictured at the top of this post did a good job. His roti began their lives as small balls of greasy dough:

Stretched, smacked, pulled, smacked and slapped until the form thin disks, they're then fried in plenty of oil, shredded, and topped with sweetened condensed milk and sugar:

Sweet tea, also shown above, is available at every one of these places, although some customers choose to circumvent the restaurant altogether and order through the window:

Another fun dish is the tandoor-baked flatbreads known here as nanbya. Much like the roti, the dough is  portioned ahead of time. The balls of dough are then flattened onto a cloth-covered dome and slapped onto the side of the oven:

A couple minutes later they emerge as steaming hot flatbreads. The bread at the shop above was incredibly popular, and there was a line of people both inside and outside:

At most places this sort of bread was served with a dhal, a mild, watery lentil curry:

I wish we had something like this in Bangkok, although this blog's occasional investigative reporter Nong A tells me she recently came across something similar to nanbya at a place on Th Ramkhamhaeng. Details to follow soon...

The restaurants are open early, from 6-9am, and are found within about 500m south of the city's mosque, which I've labeled on the map below.

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Eating in Mae Hong Son

There are so many things I'd like to share from Mae Hong Son that it would take several posts. So instead, I've created a Flickr slideshow of some of the more interesting things. (Hint: click on full-screen mode, where you can opt to see descriptions of the images.)

Khao kan jin

  The name of this dish is, I believe, dialect for, 'rice with meat'. It's a Shan dish that one finds all over northern Thailand, but is best near its traditional homeland.

Ironically there's little meat involved in the dish; that is unless you consider blood meat. The dish is made from rice that has been mixed with blood (and perhaps a bit of salt) and steamed in a banana leaf. When served, the dish is topped with crispy deep-fried garlic, plenty of garlic oil and deep-fried chilies. Coriander (cilantro) and bean sprouts are served on the side. If you have the dish in Burma's Shan State it's served with the pungent root of a type of onion/leek.

One of the best versions of the dish I've encountered is at a tiny roadside stall in Mae Hong Son:

The stall serves just two things: khao kan jin and the local version of nam ngiaw, a northern-style noodle dish. Not surprisingly, the rice dish is rich and oily, but unless you were already aware, you'd never know it was made with blood (which has little flavour of its own anyway). The nam ngiaw is made in the local style: watery and employing more tomatoes than meat.

Khao Kan Jin Stall Th Khunlum Praphat, Mae Hong Son 1-7pm

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Mae Sri Bua

Mae Sri Bua is a Shan restaurant in Mae Hong Son. The owner/chef, Mae Sri Bua is a native of the city and has been at this a long time. She has trouble walking nowadays, but still manages to make some pretty good eats.

On my first visit to the restaurant I had had jin lung, the meatballs pictured at the top of this post. This a Shan dish you see everywhere in Mae Hong Son and it's made by pounding meat (the above were made with pork, but beef or fish can also used) with fresh herbs and veggies including lemongrass, garlic, galangal, fresh chilis, shallots, turmeric and tomato. The paste is shaped into meatballs that are then deep-fried. The meatballs are spicy and strong and would put any Swede to shame. Alongside this is some sort of curried vegetable that Mae Sri Bua claims has medicinal properties, and in the small bowl nam phrik khua, another popular Shan side dish that combines dried chili, deep-fried crispy garlic and a grilled soybean paste.

On another visit I had this:

kaeng hang ley, a Burmese-style pork curry, and kaeng ho, a northern Thai-style stir-fry. The former was probably the best version of the dish I've had in a long time, and was incredibly rich as well as fragrant from the thin slices of ginger. I think it could be even better if the pork belly was slowly braised until fall-apart tender. I've already bought the necessary ingredients and am definitely planning to make this one when I get home. If I get a chance, I'll share the recipe here.

Mae Sri Bua 51 Th Singhanatbamrung, Mae Hong Son 053 612 471 8.30am-6.30pm

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Sesame oil

  Sesame is an important item in the traditional diet of the Shan people in Mae Hong Son. In addition to the various sweets that employ the seed, sesame is also used for its oil. Most places in Mae Hong Son use a mechanical press to make sesame oil, but one place in Ban Pang Muu, about 5km north of the provincial capital, still does it the old way: by buffalo.

They begin with dried sesame, shown above. When the pods are fully grown and dried, they open themselves, and getting the seeds out simply involves turning them over and shaking them out. The seeds are washed thoroughly, dried, and are ready to go

A bit of a water is added to the large wooden mortar-like vessel:

followed by the seeds themselves:

which have been washed thoroughly and dried slightly, but are not roasted beforehand, as in Chinese-style sesame oil:

A rather reluctant buffalo is connected to a large wooden 'pestle' and proceeds to walk around in circles, driving the pestle and crushing the seeds:

It takes about three hours to extract all the oil, and the guy above has to walk with the buffalo the entire time, otherwise it will stop:

After an hour or so the oil begins to separate from the seeds and rises to the top. After three hours it's simply scooped out by hand.  It takes 15kg of seeds to produce 4kg of oil, which is then put old whiskey bottles and sold in the province's markets:

To see this process firsthand, visit:

Pang Moo Organic Sesame Project 255/1 Moo 1, Pang Moo, Mae Hong Son 053 612 534

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Thai Yai sweets

  I'm usually not a huge fan of Thai desserts, but have really been enjoying the sweet stuff up here in Mae Hong Son, northern Thailand. The majority of people in this province are Shan, also known as Thai Yai (or Tai), and have a different set of sweet stuff than the Thais. Essentially, they've made due with the limited set of ingredients they have at hand: rice (regular or sticky, or sometimes wheat flour), sesame and sugar, often from sugarcane (rather than from palm sugar, as is typically the case with southern Southeast Asia).

My favourite so far is suay thamin:

I can't remember what suay means, but thamin is Burmese for rice, in this case sticky rice, which has been steamed with raw sugarcane sugar and/or juice and topped with a salty coconut custard. A similar and equally common sweet is alawaa:

made from rice flour, coconut milk and sugar. Both of these were bought in the tiny town of Pang Maphaa, also known as Soppong, and were among the only interesting things to eat there.

At the morning market in Mae Hong Son I came across these, which resembled donuts:

Apparently they're made from rice flour, sugarcane sugar and... sesame.

The last, and probably simplest of all, is khao pook:

This is purple sticky rice that has been mashed up with a bit of salt, then rolled in ground sesame. It's then served with sugarcane syrup or simply a block of sugarcane (as shown above) and wrapped in bai tong tueng, a leaf from a teak-like tree that often replaces dishes in this part of the country. Amazing really, what you can do with just a few basic ingredients.

A whole lotta khao soi

  As if I haven't been going on about it enough already, I have more exciting khao soi-related news. I was lucky enough to meet up with Andy Ricker of Pok Pok fame in Chiang Mai, where together we visited six of his favourite khao soi joints. The above pic was somewhere into our third bowl at the famous Samoe Jai Fah Ham. I'd love to reveal more, but the results will run in a magazine article next year. More to follow then. For now I'd just like to say that six bowls may not seem like a lot, but I reckon it will be a good while before I gain back the desire to eat khao soi...

A coupla pics from Mae Hong Son

Main street, Pai, during the tourist season, Mae Hong Son, northern Thailand

Am up north again and haven't had as much time as I'd like to take pics, but did get a couple chances here and there, mostly in the beautiful (but now empty) rice fields of Mae Hong Son.

Cows coming home outside Pai, Mae Hong Son, northern Thailand

 Rice fields outside Pai at sunset, Mae Hong Son, northern Thailand

Gathering rice outside Soppong, Mae Hong Son, northern Thailand

Rice fields outside Pai at sunset, Mae Hong Son, northern Thailand

Gathering rice outside Soppong, Mae Hong Son, northern Thailand

How To Make: Poj Spa Kar's lemongrass omelet

  Poj Spa Kar (pronounced phot saphaa khaan) is Bangkok's oldest restaurant. The current chef, Nathamon Jaidet, married into the family of the owner, whose relatives were former cooks in the Thai royal palace. She continues to use some of these royal recipes, my favourite of which is this simple, but delicious Thai-style lemongrass omelet.

Unlike a French-style omelet, which is cooked on one side in a small amount of butter, Thai-style omelets (khai jiaw) are essentially deep-fried on both sides. Minced pork is a common addition, but this unusual version uses finely sliced lemongrass, which provides the dish with a slight citrus flavour. The ideal Thai omelet is 'fluffy',  which Nathamon claims is due to the addition of a squeeze of lime juice. The cooking process is also unique, and Nathamon insists on using very hot oil, which results in an oil-free omelet. She also pours the egg mixture into the oil from about a foot above the wok, producing an omelet that is crispy and layered, not unlike a pastry.

Ingredients: Lemongrass, 1 stalk Eggs, 2 Lime Oil for deep-frying Chili Cilantro Bottled chili sauce

Slice white section of lemongrass as thinly as possible.

Beat Eggs thoroughly. Add a squeeze of lime juice, beat again. Add lemongrass and combine.

Heat at least four cups of oil until just beginning to smoke. Pour eggs into hot oil with a swilrling motion, from about a foot high. When omelet is slightly brown on the bottom, about 20 seconds, flip. Cook until slightly brown and crispy on opposite side, a few more seconds. Drain oil and serve with optional garnishes of sliced chili and cilantro, and a small bowl of bottled chili sauce. Serve with rice.

If you can't make it to Bangkok's Chinatown for dinner

then stop by my exhibition, The Last Chinatown, which begins tomorrow, December 6th, at Kathmandu Gallery in Bangkok.

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