Home > Thai food recipes by their origin > Traditional Recipes > c1949 Fermented rice noodles with multi-sour aromatic chicken sauce by Lady Gleep Mahithaawn (ขนมจีนน้ำพริกไก่ อย่างท่านผู้หญิงกลีบ มหิธร พ.ศ. 2492; khanohm jeen naam phrik gai)
c1949 Fermented rice noodles with multi-sour aromatic chicken sauce by Lady Gleep Mahithaawn (ขนมจีนน้ำพริกไก่ อย่างท่านผู้หญิงกลีบ มหิธร พ.ศ. 2492; khanohm jeen naam phrik gai)
Made with fermented rice noodles and an aromatic, multi-sour coconut-based chicken sauce, this is a brilliant dish that is relatively easy to prepare. While considered a light meal, the dish is just as fulfilling as the full-fledged Siamese style khanom jeen naam phrik meal set. And while the latter would have required a full day to prepare and was therefore unsuited for a casual lunch, this clever – and somewhat quicker to make – recipe is bright and delightful, a hallmark of Lady Gleep Mahithaawn’s cooking style (ท่านผู้หญิงกลีบมหิธร) (1876-1961).
Light on ingredients, the dish is seasoned and tinted red by ordinary chili jam; it is enriched with roasted peanuts, and deploys the basic saam gluuhr (สามเกลอ) – the Siamese trio of coriander roots, Thai garlic, and white peppercorns – to draw flavor. The dish also demonstrates Lady Gleep’s stellar culinary skills: She intuitively created an impactful, strong, and meaningful flavor profile foundation by cleverly layering the umami, fat, and smoke elements, yet allowing the dish to burst in a lively and fresh multi-sour expressive style.
I often use this dish in my teachings as an example of creative Siamese flavor layering; as it is composed of just a few ingredients, patterns can easily be identified, and the layering techniques are clearer to trace.
“Slice the chicken into small pieces, almost like mincing, and cut the firm pork in the same way” (หั่นเนื้อไก่เล็ก ๆ เกือบเหมือนสับ มันหมูแข็งหั่นเหมือนเนื้อไก่).
Lady Gleep starts by preparing the chicken meat and firm pork fat. “Slice the chicken into small pieces, almost like mincing…,” she writes, “…and cut the firm pork in the same way.” It’s obvious that Lady Gleep could simply have minced the chicken meat and firm pork fat and thus completed the task more quickly. Instead, she chooses to take her time, to use a sharp knife and clean cuts to achieve a uniform and precise texture and, in the process, avoid the crushing force and uncontrollable results of actual mincing.
Technically, the preparation involves cutting the ingredients into thin wide slices, which are further divided into long, narrow strips. Finally, these strips are chopped into tiny, equal size pieces. If performed patiently and calmly, this “cutting – almost mincing”, technique results in a consistent texture that retains the gracious characteristics of the animal it once was.
Putting aside the culinary poetry, Lady Gleep encourages us to plan and take control of our cooking techniques, even those we may take for granted, like mincing. The recipe is also a revealing example of how we should listen to the author’s voice when reading a recipe, and how old recipes can spur us to innovate and discover new nuances in basic cooking methods we might not otherwise reconsider.
After cutting the meat, the chicken carcass is used to make a stock, which Lady Gleep uses later to dilute the noodle sauce. The recipe contains no specific instructions on how to make the stock, so you can simply simmer the chicken bones with coriander roots, garlic and white peppercorns. I, however, prefer to use a “well-layered, all-purpose chicken stock” to further diversify the amino acid range, and to introduce a wealth of ribonucleotides, the umami synergetic intensifiers, which are crucial for the pleasant perception of the umami. You can refer to the chapter, “Introduction to Thai Clear Soups” where I discuss in detail the preparation of this stock.
After the chicken and firm pork fat are ready and the stock is simmering, Lady Gleep squeezes coconut cream from grated mature coconut. She then cooks the coconut cream and, as it thickens and starts to crack into fat, she reserves a small portion to make a flavoring paste, leaving the rest of the cream to cook and fully separate into fat (น้ำมันขี้โล้; naam man khee lo:h).
When the coconut cream has fully separated into oil, she adds and fries the chicken and firm pork fat in it. This frying method has a significant flavor-enhancing impact on the dish. First, Lady Gleep draws proteins and fats from a range of sources – poultry, mammals and plants – further diversifying the content of the amino acids in the dish and thus effectively intensifying the umami sensation. Moreover, the frying process installs the smoke element and activates the Millard reaction – a complex non-enzymatic reaction between reducing sugars and proteins that produces a plethora of diverse and complex flavors.
Even as the firm pork fat is cooked and the chicken mixture starts to caramelize to a solid flavor foundation, Lady Gleep is building on it. She prepares and adds to the pan a saam gluuhr paste (สามเกลอ) (coriander roots, Thai garlic and white peppercorns) enriched with roasted peanuts, chili jam, and the reserved thickened coconut cream. The paste is fried with the chicken mixture to remove the rawness of the saam gluuhr elements. Each of the elements in this flavoring paste helps redefine the umami, fat and smoke elements by echoing them into a new layer and a new dimension.
In addition, the chili jam installs the initial seasoning of the sour-sweet and salty profile and shades the color of the dish. While Lady Gleep instructs us to use just a “small amount of chili jam”, I usually gauge the amount by how much is needed to produce a dish with a rich and pleasant orangey-red color.
When the paste is cooked and the dish is tinted to the desired hue, it is diluted with chicken stock. Whether you use plain chicken stock or the well-layered version, the liquids should be considered as an additional layer of flavor. “Add chicken broth to a consistency just enough to coat the noodles when mixed together”, Lady Gleep writes. So keep that in mind as you add the stock, and focus on the visuals she describes.
“Add chicken broth to a consistency just enough to coat the noodles when mixed together (เติมน้ำไก่ให้ข้นพอคลุกขนมจีนติด)
Thanpuying (Lady) Gleep Mahithaawn (top right)
Seasoning:
The dish is seasoned to a sour, sweet, and salty flavor profile using fish sauce, palm sugar and a trio of citrus juices – bitter orange juice, green mandarin orange juice (น้ำส้มเหม็น) and kaffir lime juice. “The more sour ingredients, the better (หลาย ๆ ส้มยิ่งดี)”, according to Lady Gleep, a statement that echoes the favored Central Plains aristocratic culinary practice of using more than one sour-inducing component, to create a multi-sour leading flavor profile in which each ingredient is evaluated for body, sharpness, aroma, sweetness and bitterness tints. In fact, sourness, rather than being a singular taste, manifests itself in a succession of qualities: some are sharp and dramatic, and others are surprising combinations of shifting citrus aroma patterns. The playfulness of the citrus is a game-changer, instantly transforming what could be perceived as an oily, concentrated and heavy dish into a light, airy dish with a lively mouthfeel.
Since citrus juices are heat sensitive, turn off the heat before seasoning. Start by seasoning the salty ingredients first, and then estimate the amount of the sour and sweet ingredients required to achieve the desired flavor profile based on the volume of fish sauce used.
“The more sour ingredients, the better” (หลาย ๆ ส้มยิ่งดี)
The dish is garnished with pounded roasted peanuts, crispy fried garlic, and lengthwise sliced pickled garlic; it is served with fermented rice noodles and similar side dishes as served with khanom jeen naam phrik meal set are collectively called meuuat khanohm jeen (เหมือดขนมจีน)
c1949 Fermented rice noodles with multi-sour aromatic chicken sauce by Lady Gleep Mahithaawn (ขนมจีนน้ำพริกไก่ อย่างท่านผู้หญิงกลีบ มหิธร พ.ศ. 2492; khanohm jeen naam phrik gai)
Fermented rice noodles and an aromatic, multi-sour coconut-based chicken sauce. This is a brilliant dish that is relatively easy to prepare.
morning glory (ผักบุ้งไทย)sliced into small pieces and blanched in water
winged beans (ถั่วพู)sliced thinly and blanched in water
batter-fried leaves and flowers (ใบและดอกไม้ชุบแป้งทอด)
Instructions
Prepare the chicken and the firm pork fat:
Slice the chicken along the grain into thin slices. Then cut each slice along the grain into elongated threads and cut the threads into tiny slices.
Cut the firm pork into the same size slices as the chicken.
Prepare the chicken stock:
Prepare a concentrated chicken stock following the instructions described here; alternatively, simmer chicken bones with coriander roots, garlic and white peppercorns to make a simple chicken broth.
Prepare the coconut fat (น้ำมันขี้โล้; naam man khee lo:h).
In a skillet, heat the coconut cream until it thickens and oil appears. Scoop out a small portion to use in the flavoring paste.
Continue to cook the coconut cream over low heat while stirring constantly, until the clear oil renders out and the khee lo:h oil is ready for use. Turn off the heat and set it aside.
Prepare the flavoring paste:
In a mortar and pestle, pound the saam gluuhr (สามเกลอ) – coriander roots, Thai garlic and white peppercorns.
Add roasted peanuts and pound to a fine paste.
Dilute the paste in chili jam.
Mix in the reserved coconut cream.
Adjust spiciness with ground dried chili. Set aside.
Cook the dish:
Reheat the coconut fat (น้ำมันขี้โล้; naam man khee lo:h) and add the sliced firm pork fat and chicken meat.
Keep frying until the meat and the fat are cooked and a good amount of oil appears.
Add the flavoring paste and mix well; cook until the paste loses its rawness.
Assess the color of the dish: if needed, add more chili jam until the dish’s color is a vibrant orangey-red.
Dilute with the chicken stock into a consistency suitable to serve with noodles. Bring to a boil and turn off the heat.
Seasoning:
Start by seasoning the salty element using fish sauce.
When you are satisfied with the saltiness, add palm sugar at the ratio indicated.
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.
Breaking news: The oldest Thai cookbook, as well as history’s first-ever recorded recipe for Phanaeng curry, are revealed for the first time on Thaifoodmaster.com – A 126-year-old cookbook written by one of Siam’s most revered singers, Maawm Sohm Jeen (Raa Chaa Noopraphan) (หม่อมซ่มจีน, ราชานุประพันธุ์), has been rediscovered, offering a unique glimpse into the culinary repertoire of 19th-century Siam. In this chapter we examine the different forms of phanaeng curry from the 1800s to the present day, as we reconstruct the 19th-century version and craft step-by-step a traditional beef phanaeng curry.
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.
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.
Gai dtai naam, which means “under water chicken” in Thai, consists of braised chicken in a coarse, aromatic paste made from lemongrass, galangal, garlic, chilies, kaffir lime leaves, holy basil, coriander and spring onions. In the home-cooked dish popular among the Thai working class, the entire chicken – including the bones – is chopped into bite-size pieces, and served with a bottle of rice wine accompanied by local country-style music (luktung) at high volume.
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