Phat khi mao

Wide noodles with no sweetness and a great deal of fresh chilli, pounded rather than sliced.

Pork. Not vegetarian — contains fish sauce, oyster sauce, pork.

Ingredients

• 600 g fresh wide rice noodles
• 400 g minced pork
• 12 bird's eye chillies
• 8 garlic cloves
• 2 large handfuls holy basil
• 150 g green beans, in short lengths
• 1 onion, in wedges
• 2 tablespoons oyster sauce
• 2 tablespoons fish sauce
• 1 tablespoon light soy sauce
• 1 teaspoon dark soy sauce
• 4 tablespoons oil

Method

1. NO SUGAR AT ALL, AND THAT IS THE POINT. The phat si-io on this site is sweet and dark; this uses the same noodle and goes the other way -- salty, savoury and very hot, with nothing rounding it off. A teaspoon of palm sugar makes it a different dish.
2. FRESH CHILLIES, POUNDED WITH THE GARLIC, not dried flakes and not sliced. Pounding breaks the cells and puts the heat into the oil in the few seconds this spends in the pan; sliced, you get hot pieces in a mild sauce.
3. Twelve is a starting figure. It is meant to be the hottest noodle dish on the site.
4. Separate the noodle sheets by hand before they go near heat, and warm them if they are fridge-cold or they tear.
5. Mix the sauces in a bowl first. There is no time once the pan is lit.
6. Pan as hot as it goes. Oil, then the pounded garlic and chilli, 15 seconds, no colour.
7. Pork in, pressed flat and left 30 seconds to catch, then broken up. 2 minutes.
8. Beans and onion in, 1 minute -- they should stay crunchy.
9. Noodles in and LEFT ALONE 45 seconds to char, then the sauces down the side of the pan. Toss four or five times only.
10. Heat off, basil folded through. Serve at once.

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