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”?
In seeking an answer to the question, we examined Lady Plean Passakornrawong’s earlier writings (c1908), and found a similar dish with similarly sounding name called khanohm jin bpoon (ขนมจิ่นปุ่น). The dish, spelled somewhat differently, also features Lady Plean’s additions of pickled garlic, young ginger, roasted mung beans and bitter orange (ส้มส้า, sohm saa, som.za), and uses naam phrik laao (น้ำพริกลาว) instead of fried chili jam.
We were excited to come across her footnote comment to the recipe, in which she writes, “The dish khanohm jin bpoon (ขนมจิ่นปุ่น) was formerly called khao bpoon laao (เข้าปุ้นลาว); these days [c1908], the name has changed to khanohm jin yi bpoon (ขนมจิ่นยิ่ปุ่น) probably for reason of progress.”
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เล่ม 3 หน้า 142
Lady Plean offers no definitive explanation for the origins of the name, so we will probably never know the real reason behind calling this truly Thai recipe a Japanese-style fermented rice noodle hors d’oeuvre.
However, we decided to take this opportunity to discuss old Thai dishes and their names.
Old Thai dishes names fall into four main groups.
The first group includes dishes with straightforward names that indicate both the preparation method and the main ingredient used. For example:
- Gaaeng phet gai (แกงเผ็ดไก่) – Spicy red curry of chicken
- Gaaeng bpaa bplaa dook (แกงป่าปลาดุก) – Jungle curry of cat fish
- Gaaeng khuaa dtaphaap naam (แกงคั่วตะพาบน้ำ) – Curry of soft-shell turtle
- Naam phrik gabpi (น้ำพริกกะปิ) – Fermented shrimp paste chili sauce
- Yam sohm o:h (ยำส้มโอ) – Pomelo salad
The second group includes dishes with names that give no indication of the dish’s origin, character, ingredients or cooking method.
- Gaaeng bpuh (แกงเปอะ) – Curry of bamboo shoots
- Gaaeng liiang (แกงเลียง) – Curry of mixed vegetables
- Gaaeng buaan (แกงบวน) – Old-style curry
- Gaaeng jao dtao (แกงเจ้าเต่า) – Old-style curry
- Dtohm khlo:hng (ต้มโคล้ง) – Sour soup of smoked dry fish
During the reigns of King Rama VI and VII and as international trade flourished, many new ingredients became available to the cooking masters of those times; these chefs were creative and open-minded, and challenged themselves to invent new recipes with evocative, poetic names:
- Wiwaa pra samoot (วิวาห์พระสมุทร) – The Wedding of the God of the Sea
- Maang faa yiiam haawng (นางฟ้าเยี่ยมห้อง) – The Angel’s Visit
- Naa raai ban thohm sin (นารายณ์บรรทมสินธุ์) – The Reclining Vishnu
- Yam waawn phohng (ยำวรพงษ์) – Woraphong Salad
- Naam phrik na khaawn baan (น้ำพริกนครบาล) – The Cosmopolitan Dipping Sauce
- Mee raat thuut (หมี่ราชทูต) – The King’s Envoy Noodles
The final group includes dishes introduced to the Thai culinary repertoire by direct or indirect foreign influence. In some cases, they are still called by their original name, modified for Thai pronunciation.
- Pha lo:h (พะโล้) – Eggs and pork Chinese five-spice fragrant stew
- Gaaeng garee (แกงกะหรี่) – Yellow curry
- Khaao booree (ข้าวบุหรี่) – Thai-style Persian biryani rice
- Sadteh (สะเต๊ะ) – Skewered and grilled meat
Our cooking tips for khanohm jeen yee poon
- When cooking the pork belly, add couple of pandan leaves; These will introduce a pleasant aroma to the pork meat.
- Cut the cooked shrimp into lengthwise strips. Cut the pork to a matching size.
Ingredients
- shrimp
- pork belly
- green leaf lettuce
- cucumber
- coriander leaves
- unsalted roasted shelled peanuts (ถั่วลิสงคั่ว) roasted
- fresh red long chili (phrik chee fa) (พริกชี้ฟ้าแดง)
- chili jam
to make fried chili jam
- 15 dried red long chili (phrik chee fa) (พริกชี้ฟ้าแห้ง) approximately 1 cup
- 1 cup crispy fried shallots (หอมแดงเจียว)
- 1 cup deep fried garlic
- 1/2 cup dried shrimp
- 1 teaspoon sea salt (เกลือทะเล)
- 8 tablespoons palm sugar (น้ำตาลมะพร้าว)
- 6 tablespoons fish sauce (น้ำปลา)
- 4 tablespoons tamarind paste (น้ำมะขามเปียก)
Instructions
- Cook the pork on medium heat, add pandan leaf for fragrance.
- Slice the pork into bite-size pieces.
- Clean the shrimp, remove their heads, and peel and devein them before cooking until just done. Do not overcook.
- Slice the shrimp lengthwise into thin strips.
- Roast the peanuts, and then coarsely crush with a pestle and mortar.
Making Fried Chili Jam
- De-seed the dry chili, cut into small pieces, rinse and let it dry.
- Deep fry sliced shallots and sliced garlic.
- Deep fry the dry shrimps until crisp.
- Turn off the heat, and heat-fry the dry chilies in the residual oil.
- Fry the chilies until they get crisp and turn dark red. Be careful not to burn them.
- Place some salt in the mortar.
- Add the fried dried chilies.
- Pound the chilies.
- Add fried dry shrimp.
- Pound the chilies and fried dry shrimp together.
- Add the deep fried garlic and shallots.
- Pound everything into a smooth paste.
- Return the paste to the wok, and fry with residual oil left from frying each of the ingredients. Season with palm sugar.
- Season with fish sauce.
- Season with thick tamarind paste.
- Continue frying until the color becomes shiny. Taste and adjust flavors to sour-sweet-salty.
- Add roasted peanuts to the fried chili jam
To Serve
- Serve. Place a roll of the rice noodles on a piece of green leaf lettuce, add a slice of cucumber, shrimp and pork, dress with the chili jam, sprinkle roasted peanuts and decorate with coriander leaf and a thin julienne of fresh red chili pepper. Squeeze some lime juice on the dish just before eating.
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.
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 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).
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.