Listen to the Thai name pronunciation
Khanohm jeen yee poon is an appetizer consisting of a small roll of fermented rice noodles laid on a green lettuce leaf and topped with a slice of cucumber and cooked shrimp and pork belly, dressed with sour-sweet and salty fried chili jam, sprinkled with roasted peanuts and decorated with coriander leaf and a thin julienne of fresh red chili pepper. A squeeze of fresh lime juice is applied just before eating the dish.
Literally, “khanohm jeen yee poon” is translated as “Japanese-style fermented rice noodles”. But there is no evident Japanese motif in the dish that explains its name, and if we were to name the dish ourselves we would probably call it miiang khanohm jeen (เมี่ยงขนมจีน).
Miiang (or miang) is a general term for bite-sized dishes that contain several ingredients, each offering a distinct element of flavor, color or texture to create a perfect mouthful.
We came across this peculiarly-named appetizer in Lady Gleep Mahithaawn’s book “Recipes for Teaching Children and Grandchildren” (หนังสือกับข้าวสอนลูกหลาน), printed for her 72nd birthday celebration on January 7, 1949.
We wondered: Why did Lady Gleep label this hors d’oeuvre recipe as “Japanese-style”?
สูตรทำข้าวคลุกกะปิของ หม่อมเจ้าจงจิตรถนอม ดิศกุล – Rice Seasoned with Shrimp Paste Recipe – Each of the dish’s components is separately prepared and set aside, and mixed individually for each serving. A pleasant harmony of several flavors is created – complex and profound in taste, the dish is a stunning display of confidence. There are many variations of this dish: I have chosen to publish the version described by Prince Johngjit thanaawm Disagoon. This is the very same version prepared for King Chulalongkorn the Great during his unforgettable trip to Italy.
Generally speaking, laap is made from minced meat, raw or cooked, to which – depending on the type of laap and the region in which it is being created – different ingredients and seasonings are added. Laap is prepared much like a salad, by mixing together all the ingredients, including minced meat, internal organs, other meat cuts, spice blends, seasonings and herbs. It is served accompanied by a diverse assortment of vegetables, young leaves and herbs. There are two main styles of laap – laap from Lanna, and laap from Isan. The Lanna version, known as laap muang (ลาบเมือง), features a rich blend of dry spices, resulting in a mildly spicy, pungent, salty and aromatic dish. Neither lime juice or ground roasted rice is used in laap muang. The seasoning blend for laap muang is called naam phrik laap (น้ำพริกลาบ), and contains sought-after spices that were originally imported to the region by trade caravans from India and China.
Gaaeng Ranjuaan is spicy, sour, sweet and salty beef curry seasoned with no more than fermented shrimp paste chili sauce. It should be served steaming hot, and must possess three distinct flavors, similar to fish Tom Yam soup. These modest ingredients and an intensely-flavored curry emerge from a story about love, things lost in translation and…leftovers.
Khao mao bueang and khao Mao Mee (ข้าวเม่าหมี่) are the only two known savory dishes from antiquity made from pounded unripe rice grains (ข้าวเม่า; khao mao). While khao mao mee (ข้าวเม่าหมี่) is still a well-known and widely available dish, very few people remember khao mao bueang. Therefore, we are pleased to reintroduce into the Thai culinary repertoire the delicious khao mao bueang.
For the khanohm jeen saao naam version that we present today, we turn again to the writing of Thanpuying (Lady) Gleep Mahithaawn for her unique take on the dish. Her version is quite similar to the common recipe encountered nowadays, but Lady Gleep enhances it with more ingredients, elevating the dish yet another notch to the level of a majestic masterpiece.
อ่านเรื่องของขนมจีนน่าสนใจมากนะค่ะ ขอบคุณเรื่องราวดีจากทีมงานทุกคน ^^
อ่านไปฮาไป ขนมจีนว่าไปหากินเมืองจีนก็ไม่น่าจะหาได้แล้ว เจอชื่อ ขนมจีนญี่ปุ่น นี่ไปหาที่ญี่ปุ่นก็คงไม่เจอเหมือนกัน
To help clarify the etymology: the Lao word for khanom jin (the etymology of which you explained elsewhere) is khaaw pun (ข้าวปุ่น). So it makes sense that if the original dish was made with naam phrik laaw (น้ำพริก ลาว), the Lao word for the noodles would be applied, then later hybridized as khanom jin pun. My guess, like Lady Plian’s, is that since this original meaning was lost, khanom jin pun didn’t make sense and changing it to yii pun seemed like a sensible thing to do. However, it is also conceivable that there was some peripheral influence from Japanese cold somen noodles (which are often recommended as a substitute for khanom jin outside Thailand; I don’t think they are a good substitute, being made of wheat, and there are much better substitutes to be had), since there was a large contingent of Japanese around the court from the Ayutthaya period. These various factors might have been conflated at a later time.
interesting idea, thank you for sharing !
Also, do you have any recipe for น้ำพริกลาว? I would love to experiment with Lady Plian’s original version.
Hi Josh, น้ำพริกลาว is a basic tamarind chili relish (น้ำพริกมะขามเปียก) which was made of dry chilies, salt, garlic, tamarind, sugar and maybe sometime a squeeze of lime. In the old days it was served with grilled catfish, river shrimp and boiled neem tree leaves (สะเดาลวก). น้ำพริกลาว was used in a similar to the way น้ำปลาหวาน is used today. Lady Plian’s didn’t publish a recipe for it.