Mi krop
Vermicelli fried to a crisp nest and tossed in caramel at the last second, eaten immediately.
Pork, Shellfish, Egg. Not vegetarian — contains fish sauce, pork, shellfish.
Ingredients
- 200 g dried rice vermicelli
- 200 g palm sugar
- 4 tablespoons tamarind paste
- 3 tablespoons fish sauce
- 2 tablespoons rice vinegar
- 200 g prawns, chopped
- 150 g pork, finely chopped
- 4 eggs
- 1 tablespoon orange zest
- 6 garlic cloves, chopped
- 4 shallots, sliced
- 100 g beansprouts, to serve
- oil, for deep frying
Method
- TOSSED IN THE CARAMEL AT THE LAST POSSIBLE SECOND. Fried vermicelli stays crisp for about two minutes once sauce touches it, and this is the only dish here where the assembly is more urgent than the cooking. Everything else is finished and waiting before the noodles go in.
- FRY THE VERMICELLI DRY AND UNSOAKED, straight from the packet, in small handfuls. Soaked first it absorbs oil and goes heavy; dry, it puffs instantly into a white nest.
- Oil at 190C. A small handful in, 3 to 5 seconds, turned once, out. They burn in the time it takes to look away.
- Drain on a rack and keep them somewhere dry. Done in advance is fine; they keep an hour.
- Thin omelette: beat two of the eggs, fry in a wide thin sheet, roll and shred. Set aside.
- Fry the garlic and shallots until gold and lift them out.
- Pork and prawns in the same pan, 4 minutes, then out with the garlic.
- CARAMEL: palm sugar, tamarind, fish sauce and vinegar in a wide pan, boiled 8 to 10 minutes until it is thick, dark and sticky and a drop on a cold plate holds its shape.
- Orange zest in at the end of the caramel, off the heat.
- Everything back in, then the noodles LAST, folded through with two spoons for twenty seconds and tipped straight onto the plate with the beansprouts. Do not keep tossing to coat them evenly -- evenly coated means soft.
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