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”?
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.
The sweet leading sour coconut cream based sauce, enriched and thickened with fragrant freshly roasted peanuts and golden beans are a wonderful coat to dress the sweet shrimp meat. The aromatics are being extracted in every possible way, by roasting, and frying, boiling and reducing, pounding and grounding. All the culinary methods are being fully employed to guarantee an absolute real first class dish.
If you want to start some real Thai cooking going at your home, have the time and access to all the ingredients, than I really want you to try this dish. The building blocks of flavors work so well here and it will open you a great window to see the beginning of what is possible in Thai cuisine.
Khanohm jeen (ขนมจีน) are noodles made from rice starch. Their strands are long, round, thin and elastic, with a beautiful white sheen and a pleasant chewy texture.
It is unclear exactly when khanohm jeen production arrived in Thailand; however, it is likely that production was already active during the Ayutthaya period (1351-1767), in communities along the Khanohm Jeen canal, a main water artery in Ayutthaya’s Senna district (คลองขนมจีน อ.เสนา จ.พระนครศรีอยุธยา).
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.
The dish was introduced to me by a street vendor in forsaken part of town some twenty years ago. Auntie Yai was a true character. She was wearing intensive makeup and I still remember her talkative hilarious manner. I and other customers waiting in line were regularly subjected to nonstop “interrogations” or “interviews”. I must admit I enjoyed the peek into other people lives while waiting over an hour for her mouth watering curried rice croquettes. I loved how the pungent, vibrant swirl of ginger was setting off the fermented pork sourness just perfectly, how the nutty crunch of those peanuts was balanced by the vivid tone of fresh herbs.
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.