43 Thailand #10: Jok

fleecy noodle-y delicious

I continue to slowly work my way through 43 travel stories about our time in Thailand and Malaysia this past winter...

The other night, M. and I watched the Cook's Tour episode about Thailand from the second season (the last one before he switched to the Travel channel and started No Reservations). Anthony Bourdain's in Chiang Mai looking for breakfast, and goes to a jok restaurant, calling it "jog." As he tucks in, he muses about what it's made out of - I think he guessed farina? - and narrates his discovery of a "foreign" breakfast that ends up being delicious.

 

It struck me as funny that something so foreign to him would be so familiar to me when visiting Thailand. I grew up eating the stuff - the Chinese version - my favorite was with hundred year old eggs. Living in Korea I've tried the sweet versions, like pumpkin, that I had never had before (jook was always savory growing up). For me, encountering jok in Thailand was like how finding McDonald's in Asia is for many Americans - something reliable and familiar.

On my first trip there I had a version with organ meats. The version pictured, which we had with A. in Chiang Mai, is pretty classic Thai in my experience: fleecy fairly thin rice porridge with a lightly poached egg, still runny, some green onions and - my favorite part - steamed pork meatballs. It also comes with little crisp-fried rice noodles sprinkled on top, and you can add fish sauce or chiles if you like.

43 Thailand #7: Sukiyaki

Think there's enough scallions?

Lately, I've been thinking about Japan a lot. Originally, we were thinking about sending clothes and food, but as Maki of Just Bento and Just Hungry, one of my favorite bloggers (she's responsible for getting me into bentoing) points out in a recent post, given all the current transportation difficulties, the surest way to make sure you're helping from overseas is to send money. In her post she recommends organizations that you can donate to.

And that's a segueway to my next travel post from our trip to Thailand (getting back to my 43 travel stories).

Japanese food is pretty popular in Thailand: from sushi to sukiyaki, a hearty soup of sliced beef simmered together with vegetables and noodles in a hot pot and eaten family style. On both of my trips there I've eaten the latter with my friends A. and T., though the Thai versions I've had bore a closer resemblance to Chinese hotpot or Japanese shabu shabu, with your own individual dipping sauce and quick cooking vegetables, meat, and other ingredients that you add at different times.

However, I had never encountered a dish like the one pictured, also called sukiyaki. A. ordered it on our second night in Chiang Mai. The basic elements were thin noodles and scallions, stir-fried with egg in a sweetish sauce. Though the dish itself wasn't particularly memorable (I preferred my lad na), the name intrigued both me and M., though our friends were at a loss to explain where the name came from when we asked.

It's interesting to see how the use of an imported word develops and evolves over time (in a particular culture (case in point, mandu). I wonder how common the fried noodle dish called sukiyaki is in Thailand?

43 Thailand #6: Lad Na

On our second night in Chiang Mai, after visiting A's aunt, we went to a brightly lit cafe for dinner. M. ordered Penang curry, A. got something called Sukiyaki, and, for nostalgia's sake, I got Lad Na Moo.

My dad has been cooking Thai food since before I was born, and his dishes were a regular part of meals at home while I was growing up. For what it's worth, his Thai food remains the standard by which I judge other Thai food, and some of his versions are still my favorites. Even today when I go home for a visit I always request at least one Thai dish from Dad.

There were several dishes that were part of the regular rotation at our house: Pad thai, Larb (my favorite, especially with fresh green beans from the garden), various kinds of Tom Yum soups, Kao Pad (Thai fried rice), and a noodle dish called Guay Teow Lad Na, which I didn't really care for all that much as a kid. It was made with wider rice noodles than pad thai, in a sticky brown sauce with sliced pork and gai lan (Chinese broccoli). At the table he'd serve the finished dish with a jar of his vinegar peppers. The resulting combination of textures and flavors didn't really appeal to me. The vinegar was too pungent, the sticky sweetness not to my liking at all (I was the weird kid who would forgo dessert in favor of a second helping of peas).

However, as I got older and my palate expanded, I started to appreciate Lad Na more: the deep flavor and sticky texture of dark soy sauce, the contrast of crunchy vinegar peppers and chewy noodles, and the savory bits of slightly charred gai lan. Though I like it more now, I don't eat it very often, as it is not as common as other Thai dishes on menus outside of Thailand.

The Lad Na that I ordered in Chiang Mai was not dark brown like Dad's but in a much lighter gravy, with more of it (in Dad's version the sauce is much thicker and clings to the noodles more) and made with sen yai (thick rice noodles). It could be that this was a regional variant. However, with its contrast of chewy noodles, vinegar and crunch from the added peppers, gai lan and garlicky sauce, it evoked meals long past, and I might as well have been sitting at our kitchen table in Minnesota with the sun slanting through the atrium, eating dinner with my family. When you're living abroad and family times are few and far between, those moments count for a lot.

43 Thailand #5: Mieng Kham

 Mieng Kham kits for sale in the Warorot market in Chiang Mai

10 baht (approx 30 cents) each

Getting back to my 43 stories from Thailand and Malaysia...

I first encountered this vibrant little snack at a temple market on my first trip to Thailand over eight years ago. Mieng means "many" and kham means "one bite."  It's a little betel leaf packet containing bits of dried shrimp, fresh lime, roasted peanuts, a teeny cube of ginger, toasted coconut, and shallot, with a spicy tangy sauce. Sweet, salty, sour, savory, crunchy - all the elements combine to create something bright and vibrant, greater than the sum of its parts, and really refreshing. It was a bit hard for me to find places to get it once I got back to the U.S., so I'd only had it once (at my dad's friend's restaurant) and it was on my must-eats list on my December trip.

While browsing Chiang Mai's Warorot market with my friend A., I found a stall selling mieng kham kits. We bought a few of these packets to take to A.'s aunt's house, where we sat next to her fish pond (getting bit by not a few mosquitoes in the process) and drank bright blue butterfly pea tea. The taste was just as I remembered, and M. really enjoyed them, too. If you're curious and want to try making them at home, here's a recipe.

43 Thailand #4: First Cooking Lesson

On our first morning in Chiang Mai, my friend A. and I made fried rice and tom yum goong (sour lemongrass soup with shrimp). In her sunny kitchen we fried the aromatics for the soup and chopped ingredients for the fried rice. A. cooks like me, by feel, so it was a lot of fun to cook with her. She had lots of tips to offer. For one, she showed me how to cut a lime so that each piece is easily squeezable. Basically, you cut around the center so that all of the hard pith gets extracted. Dad used to cut his limes the same way and I never understood why, because they weren't in perfect wedges, but now I finally get it.

The fried rice was a bit mushy but very flavorful. My favorite part was the slices of naem, garlicky pink sausages that are cured somehow so that they're safe to eat "raw" but I feel better cooking them. Growing up I used to see Dad eating them like string cheese out of their plastic wrappers.

43 Thailand #3: Chili heat

Dishes on display

Hardly anyone in my family is a lightweight when it comes to spicy food. Even my grandma, since living with my parents, has developed a higher tolerance for heat. My mom told me that once she lost her hearing for a full minute because of eating a hot chili (it might have been a habanero).

Popping raw chiles has become kind of an addiction for me; the resultant endorphin rush is worth any temporary discomfort. My mom's experience has become my litmus test for whether something is too spicy for me: if I lose my hearing, I've gone too far (Fingers crossed it hasn't happened yet, not that I haven't pushed it a few times...).

On our first full day in Bangkok, we were at lunch with my Thai brother and his friend, and I saw the little red chilies innocently hanging out on the edge of the plate, thought "Why not?" and popped one into my mouth, to the mild horror and amusement of my dining companions.

At first I was thinking "This isn't so bad." But then, inevitably, the heat started building, the insides of my ears started to hurt, and my eyes began to water. To get through it I just kept eating rice (no water; that's the worst) and slowly, slowly, the fire abated. Totally worth it (I personally believe that subjecting myself to this trial set me up for the intensely spicy somptam that we had in Chiang Mai a few days later).

Cool Thai Food Links

Thought I'd share a few links that were useful in preparing for one of the most important parts of our Thailand (and Malaysia) trip: Eating.

1.  This list was indispensible in planning what we wanted to prioritize putting in our gullets (and when you're in Thailand, some prioritizing is needed, believe me). If you're a street food enthusiast like me and planning a trip to Thailand, you should definitely check it out. And, even if you're not planning a trip - enjoy the photos!

2. One man, the author of this blog, spent 30 days eating exclusively street food around his home in Thailand. 100 meals in total, and he never repeated a dish, plus he reports saving money and losing weight. If I attempted that in my neighborhood, I'd probably be stuck on a rotation of twigim 튀김, ddeokbokki 떡볶기, hotteok 호떡, toast 토스트, and sundae 순대; there's no way I could even approach 100 (and as for losing weight...).

3. Featured on the same site as #2 is this series of quizzes and menu decoders, which you can use to practice reading Thai (if you already know the alphabet. If you don't already but are interested in learning, this is the site that I used to brush up on the alphabet and continue learning before we went; Dad has used it, too, to keep up his Thai).

43 Thailand #2: Thai Condiments

Growing up, I could always tell when Dad had a cold because there he'd be, huddled at the kitchen table over a steaming bowl of soup noodles (guay teow rhua) with a box of tissues at the ready, and his jars of sliced peppers in vinegar, sugar, and pepper flakes. It's a cold remedy that I have used over the years since I started living on my own (and of course is delicious even when I'm not sick).

The three additions of sugar, vinegar peppers and red chili flakes were an indispensable part of this ritual. For years, and to this day, the peppers in particular were a reliable sight on the second shelf of our fridge, typically stored in an old marinated artichokes jar. Besides soup noodles, we also added them to rad na (click here for a description: it's closest to #95 on the list).

In Thailand, those condiments are a ubiquitous presence on the tables of restaurants and street stalls everywhere. Our first morning in Bangkok, I proudly ordered two bowls in my rudimentary Thai, and felt completely at home slurping happily away and sweating in the heat. Our order quickly arrived, each bowl containing thin rice noodles (sen lek) plus fish balls, sliced of roast pork, beansprouts, and something I hadn't encountered before: pieces of deep-fried wonton skin, which soaked up the broth and added interesting textures to the bowl. It cost 50 baht for two bowls (about $1.60 USD).

It was after this picture was taken and we finished our meal that we ran into my Thai brother on the street, coming to find us at our guesthouse! We had our reunion (it had been 8 years since I'd seen him last) there on the street north of Khao San road. If we hadn't decided to stop for noodles at that particular time, we would have missed him.

43 Thailand #1: Mataba

 My knowledge and experience of Thai food is centered around Isan, the northeastern region. It's where my dad lived while he was serving in the army, and also where my Thai family lives (basically my host family in Thailand; their son, my Thai brother, lived with my family for a time as an exchange student when he was in high school and we've been visiting back and forth ever since). Isan food is also popular in other parts of Thailand, and since I'm familiar with it, I tend to order it. Therefore, my knowledge of Thai food from other regions is lacking in comparison.

Our first night in Bangkok, our friend J., who has lived in Thailand for several years now, took us to a southern Thai restaurant around Khao San Road (an experience for another post...) and we ordered something called mataba that turned out to be a kind of stuffed roti served with a bit of pickled cucumber relish on the side:

Isn't it pretty on its blue plate? The egg and meat layered with pastry inside created a nice texture. Unfortunately, this particular mataba didn't really strike me. It could have been the time: We were eating fairly late (around 10pm) and it wasn't warmed completely through. Also, there wasn't anything particularly distinctive about the spicing. However, after reading this description of the dish on Kasma Lola-unchit's site, I'm willing to give it another try when I have the chance.

Note: Also from Kasma Lola-unchit: Apparently "mataba" is the Thai word for what is referred to as "murtabak" in Malaysia and Singapore.

43 Travel Stories

As a way of sharing my experiences in Thailand and Malaysia, I thought I'd do something a little different.

Last year I started a page on the goal-setting website 43Things. In a nod to that site, and an effort to get into more regular blogging this year, I will be posting 43 photos with accompanying anecdotes from my travels.