Miang kham

Raw bits wrapped in a leaf one at a time, with a thick sauce reduced until it coats.

Shellfish. Not vegetarian — contains fish sauce, shellfish, shrimp paste.

Ingredients

the sauce

• 120 g palm sugar
• 4 tablespoons fish sauce
• 100 ml water
• 40 g toasted coconut
• 2 tablespoons dried shrimp
• 20 g galangal, chopped
• 1 teaspoon shrimp paste

to wrap

• 30 betel leaves
• 60 g toasted coconut flakes
• 60 g dried shrimp
• 60 g peanuts, roasted
• 1 lime, in 5 mm dice with the skin on
• 40 g ginger, in 5 mm dice
• 4 shallots, in 5 mm dice
• 6 bird's eye chillies, sliced

Method

1. NOTHING IS COOKED AND NOTHING IS MIXED. Every component sits in its own pile and each parcel is built in the hand at the moment of eating. Combined in a bowl it becomes a relish, and the whole point is that each mouthful is a different accident of proportions.
2. THE LIME GOES IN WITH ITS SKIN ON, diced small. The bitterness of the pith against the sugar is the flavour people remember; peeled, it is just sour.
3. Sauce first. Toast 40 g of coconut in a dry pan until deep brown, 5 minutes, then pound it with the dried shrimp, galangal and shrimp paste to a rough paste.
4. Palm sugar, fish sauce and water in a small pan, simmered until the sugar dissolves, then the paste in.
5. REDUCE IT UNTIL IT COATS THE BACK OF A SPOON, 12 to 15 minutes. Thin sauce runs straight out of the parcel and down your wrist, which is the one way this dish fails.
6. Cool it completely. It thickens further as it cools and should end up like loose honey.
7. Toast the 60 g of coconut flakes separately until gold.
8. Arrange everything in separate piles around the leaves.
9. TO EAT: a leaf in the palm, folded into a cone, one piece of each thing in, half a teaspoon of sauce last, folded shut and eaten whole. Build them one at a time; built in advance the leaves wilt and leak within minutes.

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