Khao soi
A coconut curry noodle bowl with two noodles, one boiled in it and one fried on top.
Chicken. Not vegetarian — contains chicken, chicken stock, curry paste, which usually contains shrimp paste, fish sauce.
Ingredients
- 400 g fresh egg noodles
- 100 g of those noodles, kept back for frying
- 800 g chicken legs
- 600 ml coconut milk
- 4 tablespoons red curry paste
- 1 tablespoon curry powder
- 1 teaspoon ground turmeric
- 3 tablespoons fish sauce
- 1 tablespoon palm sugar
- 400 ml chicken stock
- 2 tablespoons oil
- 1 shallot, sliced, to serve
- 3 tablespoons pickled mustard greens, to serve
- 2 limes, in wedges
Method
- TWO NOODLES, AND THAT IS WHAT MAKES IT THIS DISH. Most go into the broth and are soft; a handful is deep-fried and piled on top, and stays crisp for exactly as long as it takes to eat the bowl. One without the other is a curry noodle soup, not this.
- Fry the kept-back 100 g first, loose, in 170C oil for 40 to 60 seconds until pale gold and rigid. Drain on a rack. They colour fast and burnt ones taste of nothing but oil.
- CRACK THE PASTE IN OIL BEFORE ANY LIQUID. The curry paste goes into the oil over a medium heat with the curry powder and turmeric, and is pressed and stirred for 3 to 4 minutes until it darkens and the oil separates and runs red at the edges. Paste stirred into coconut milk cold tastes raw and dusty however long it then simmers.
- 200 ml of the coconut milk in, and let it bubble hard with the paste for 2 minutes until it splits and goes glossy.
- Chicken in, turned to coat. Stock and the rest of the coconut milk in.
- Fish sauce and palm sugar. Simmer, uncovered, 35 minutes, until the chicken is coming away from the bone.
- Boil the remaining 400 g of noodles 2 minutes in a separate pan, and drain. Boiled in the curry they thicken it to glue.
- Noodles in the bowl, chicken on top, broth over, fried noodles last so they stay above the surface.
- Shallot, pickled greens and lime on the side, added by whoever is eating it.
Our own recipe. This one was written for this site rather than taken from anywhere, so there is no source to point you at. The quantities and the order of the steps are choices, not the only way to do it.
Filed under Thailand · All recipes