Mu kratha

A domed pan grilling meat in the middle while a moat of broth cooks everything else.

Pork, Shellfish, Egg. Not vegetarian — contains fish sauce, pork, pork stock, shellfish.

Ingredients

the table

• 800 g pork belly, very thinly sliced
• 400 g pork collar, very thinly sliced
• 200 g prawns
• 6 eggs
• 300 g cabbage and greens
• 200 g glass noodles, soaked
• 100 g pork fat, in cubes, for greasing

the broth

• 1.5 litres pork stock
• 40 g ginger, sliced
• 4 coriander roots
• 2 tablespoons fish sauce

the sauce

• 6 tablespoons lime juice
• 4 tablespoons fish sauce
• 3 tablespoons palm sugar
• 8 garlic cloves
• 10 bird's eye chillies
• 1 bunch coriander

Method

1. THE PAN IS THE RECIPE. A domed grill plate with a moat around it: meat goes on the dome, broth sits in the moat, and the fat and juices run down off the dome INTO the broth, which is what makes the broth worth drinking by the end. On a flat grill with a pan of soup beside it you have two separate dishes.
2. RUB THE DOME WITH A CUBE OF PORK FAT before anything else and again every few minutes. This is the only greasing it gets, and a dry dome tears the first slice that touches it.
3. Slice the pork as thinly as you can -- 2 mm. Freezing it for 30 minutes first makes this far easier. Thick slices need longer than the dome can give them before they dry.
4. Broth: stock, ginger, coriander roots and fish sauce, simmered 15 minutes and strained into the moat.
5. Sauce: pound the garlic and chillies, then stir in the lime, fish sauce and palm sugar until dissolved. Coriander last. Make it sharper than seems sensible -- it is cutting through an evening of pork fat.
6. At the table: heat the pan properly before the first slice goes on, until a drop of water skitters.
7. Meat on the dome, a few slices at a time, 1 to 2 minutes a side. Vegetables, noodles and prawns into the moat.
8. Crack the eggs into the moat towards the end, where they poach in what the meat has given up.
9. KEEP THE MOAT TOPPED UP with hot stock, not water. It reduces fast and concentrates, and by the end it is the best thing on the table.

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