Holding Siam in Your Hand

You don't have to pick up an atlas or grab a fistful of pad thai to hold Thailand in your hand. To grasp a little something whose components and taste exemplify the Land of Smiles, you need only to rustle up some miang kham. Its odd-but-delicious flavor explosion simply exclaims "Thailand!" in one's mouth.

Making miang kham is so easy and fun that BEM wonders why so few (if any) overseas Thai restaurants offer the snack to their patrons. All you need to do is chop the following into tiny pieces: fresh ginger, lime, shallots (or onion if need be), and chillies. Then make sure you have some peanuts, toasted unsweetened coconut, and tiny dried shrimp (available at most Asian markets). If you can procure some wild tea leaves, which are smooth and shiny, cut them into circles about 3 to 4 inches in diameter. Or you can do the same with red-leaf or butter lettuce.

The last piece of the puzzle is naam miang. If your local Asian market doesn't stock any jars of the thick, sweet stuff, then you can make a close approximation at home. Pound a 1/2 cup of chopped ginger, a 1/2 cup of minced shallots, and 1 tablespoon of shrimp paste (any Asian market worth its MSG will have it) into a sticky paste. Or throw them together in a blender if you lack a mortar and pestle. Add 1/4 cup of water, 1 tablespoon of fish sauce (see above re: shrimp paste) and enough palm sugar or brown sugar or honey to suit your taste. Stir the lot together. Then cook in a small saucepan until it's well blended. Set aside to cool a bit, then use before it becomes too thick to spoon up easily.

Set the sauce in a bowl next to the stacked-up leaves and all of the other parts, such as chopped ginger, in little bowls. You can make a little cone of a tea or lettuce circle, then add a tiny bit of everything including a drizzle of naam miang at the end. Then pop the parcel into your mouth, chew slowly, and savor the unlikely combination of flavors that wind up complementing each other beautifully. There! You've tasted the best of Thailand in one mouthful! (Except, of course, for curry, Thai coffee, Thai tea, som-o, Chiang Mai sausage, salty eggs, guava, lot dee sai mai,...oh, never mind, there's so much good food that it's impossible to get all the tastes in one bite. But this dish is the most inclusive this khon farang is aware of.)

The first time I experienced building and tasting my own little cones of miang kham was during my second trip to Thailand, in 1996. We were staying in Soi Prapanit, off Soi Suan Phlu, with two American expats who had enthusiastically embraced Thai culture. Frank was working for a multinational insurance firm and Michelle was studying Thai language full-time. (To this day she is the most fluent Thai-speaker of any female expat I've known. Meanwhile, Frank was kept so busy with work that his Thai prowess consisted mainly of his adage that, "When in doubt, just smile and say, 'Khrap!'")

Anyway, to make a long story short, Pedro was quite ill from something he picked up during our travels up north. Fever, chills, plumbing not working properly -- I look back and think, what were we thinking, not visiting a doctor?! He stayed huddled in Frank and Michelle's guestbed for about three days while Michelle took me sightseeing. At Chatuchak Market she picked up, among loads of other tsotchkes, ingredients for miang kham so we could prepare it back in her kitchen.

The sauce became so unbelievably sticky, however, that we were trying to glom together leaves and ginger and peanuts and so on, while everything was sticking to other things and gradually the whole kitchen table seemed to be covered with flypaper and we felt like we'd been set up for a "Candid Camera"-style TV show ("See the high-strung khon farang ladies struggle against a spectacularly sticky sauce that, unbeknownst to them, actually consists of super-glue!"). Naam miang found its way onto my shirt, shorts, and even hair. It seemed to be...spreading of its own volition.

Eventually Michelle disentangled herself from the culinary chaos. (Poor Pedro was snoring away and Frank was at the office during this fiasco.) She managed to wrap all the sticky bowls in cling-film so we could share them with the lobby staff downstairs. If they weren't scared off by the cobweb-like strands of sauce draped over the ingredients, perhaps they could show us how to construct little parcels without staging "The Blob Returns". Indeed, the folks downstairs clapped their hands with delight at the miang kham's arrival. Sharing an interactive snack would inject some sanuk into their afternoon. But would they mind enlightening the khon farang on how to eat it properly? No problem!

They dove in with gusto. And not a single khon Thai let one drop of naam miang fall onto her clothing or hair. Administering an unusually sticky version of naam miang requires a finesse similar to that needed for shifting Rice Krispie treat "dough" from the stovetop into a cookie tin (as well as patting it down into the tin) without the whole stringy mess cloaking you, the table, your pets, etc.

Since that day I've not met an equally unmanageable naam miang. Usually it's more runny than sticky. But I'm glad that my introduction included such a difficult sauce, because it compelled us to seek guidance from friendly Thai experts. Miang kham not only tastes like Thailand; the dish also tastes better when eaten in fun company. So, although miang kham's not as substantive as, say, mussaman curry or pad sii-ew, it's got my vote for national dish, hands down. Mee khwam suk gap ahaan Thai -- OK, mai?

Comments

[Sarah]

Oh1 My God. My mouth is watering. The food I miss most from the UK is the UK national dish - curry. I'm told, by people who know, that it is impossible to get a good curry down in this part of France. Luckily Thai food seems to travel better. Our asian supermarket has a surprising mount of Thai ingredients. Other things that don't travel well - mangosteens, pineapples, red bananas, rambutans ... mmm ... have to go I'm dripping on my keyboard ...

[Elemmaciltur]

Awwwww...you're making me missing Thai food!

Your Miang Kham sounds 'aroy maak maaaaaaaak'!!!

[Heather]

Love this post, and can almost taste your delicacy. Think I'll have to try this one out.

[lyle]

wow, i should write about thai food more often! i'm glad this post may inspire y'all to make miang kham at home. it's a bundle of contradictions (like life): spicy and sweet, crunchy and smooth. yum.

i forgot to give credit to lonely planet's "world food: thailand" book for the naam miang recipe. here i buy the jar, but stateside i made it the lp way.

sarah, mangosteens are my fave of the fruits you listed. so tart/sweet! i hope france starts importing the fruits and other foods you miss from your time in asia! (as well as a good u.k. curry.) i hope you can bring your family back east someday.

heather, please do make some one day; bring a taste of thailand to utah. i bet bean will enjoy tossing the shredded coconut in the air!

elemmaciltur, can you find these ingredients in munich? can you find decent thai food there?

[Elemmaciltur]

Lyle, there's a Thai grocery shop just round the corner from where I live. The ingredients are easy enough to find, although I'm not sure whether they'd have 'naam miang' in a jar or not...and the proper 'miang' leaves could be problematic.

Although I could ask the wife of the shopowner...she won an award (last year, I think) for being the best Thai cook in Germany! O.o

[Mel]

Hey
My name is Mel. I like ur blog. Im in thailand right now traveling aroung but my friend told me about this awesome website chatthailand
and i got to chat with some cool people on there got some more information about thailand and got alot of friends who actually showing me around when i got here u should check it out sometime
maybe for ur next trip who knows

[MappyB]

I really enjoy reading your blog from here in DC. That recipe sounds great, I'll have to try it out. Thanks!

[veronica]

I love your recipe and I look forward to trying it. Maybe a stupid question but -- are the tea leaves just a holder or are they eaten too?