1,000 Foods To Eat Before You Die: A Food Lover's Life List (211 page)

Mail order:
Thai Supermarket Online, tel 888-618-8424,
importfood.com
; Rani’s World Foods, tel 281-440-8080,
ranisworldfoods.com
(search coconut milk; coconut flakes).
Further information and recipes:
Cracking the Coconut
by Su-mei Yu (2000);
Coconut Lover’s Cookbook
by Bruce Fife (2010);
Rose’s Heavenly Cakes
by Rose Levy Beranbaum (2009);
Bake!
by Nick Malgieri (2010);
cookstr.com
(search thai coconut chicken);
foodandwine.com
(search coconut desserts).
Tip:
To identify fresh coconuts, look for ones with firm husks. When shaken, the juice inside should make an audible sloshing sound, indicating that the nut hasn’t dried out. To open the coconut, drill into the softest of the three eyes on the end of the husk and let the water drain out into a bowl. Use a hammer to smash open the nut. Then pry the meat from the shell with a sharp knife.
Special events:
Cape Coral Coconut Festival, Cape Coral, FL, November,
capecoral.net
; Coconut Festival, Kapaa, Kauai, HI, October,
kbakauai.org
.

An effective escort for curry.

Given how many cultures love noodles, it would seem that if any cooks in the world were given some sort of starch-based flour—whether from wheat, rice, beans, buckwheat, or even potatoes—they would set about forming this comfort food. One of the most original and unusual noodle preparations is Thai
mee krob
, made with dried, thread-thin rice noodles.

The best way to describe a platter of mee krob, which simply means “crisp noodles,” is as a nest of pure spun gold on a bed of fresh herbs and crunchy bean sprouts. Its gilded tangle contains a palate-tingling combination of sweetly glazed, crisply fried rice noodles, gently scrambled eggs, and diced onion, pork, and shrimp. Served as an appetizer or side dish, it is accented by the anchovy-based fermented fish sauce
nam pla
, as well as scallions, hot chiles, and just enough tamarind or lime juice to balance out the golden palm sugar glaze.

Mee krob serves as a foil for some of the spicier Thai curries by providing the textural contrast of its crackling lacy strands. It also soothes the palate with the bittersweet overtones of caramelized palm sugar, while the bits of vegetable, meat, or shellfish work as added seasonings to the curry itself. One might almost consider it what trendy menu planners call a palate refreshener.

Fortunately for Western cooks, all of the ingredients necessary for mee krob are available in Asian markets as well as by mail order. As with fried rice, it is possible to substitute just about any meat, poultry, or shellfish for the pork and shrimp, thereby making elegant and delicious use of leftovers.

Where:
In New York
, Jaiya at two locations,
jaiya.com
;
in Boston
, Brown Sugar Cafe, tel 617-787-4242,
brownsugarcafe.com
;
in Cambridge, MA
, The Similans, tel 617-491-6999,
brownsugarcafe.com
;
in Washington, DC
, Bua Thai, tel 202-265-0828,
buathai.com
;
in New Orleans
, La Thai Uptown, tel 504-899-8886,
lathaiuptown.com
;
in Houston
, Vieng Thai, tel 713-688-9910;
in Norwalk, CA
, Renu Nakorn, tel 562-921-2124.
Mail order:
For Thai rice vermicelli, palm sugar, rice vinegar, and fermented fish sauce, Thai Supermarket Online, tel 888-618-8424,
importfood.com
.
Further information and recipes:
Cracking the Coconut
by Su-Mei Yu (2000);
Thai Food
by David Thompson (2002);
thaitable.com
(search mee grob);
cookstr.com
(search vegetarian mee krob).
See also:
Dan Dan Noodles
;
Taiwanese Beef Noodles
;
Singapore Mei Fun
;
Pho Bo
.

Squash filled with sweet coconut custard.

At a time when chefs vie to come up with the most enticing and creative presentations for dishes, desserts foremost among them, it’s amazing that this Thai specialty has not caught on in the Western world and taken its rightful place alongside such international favorites as tirami sù (see
listing
), profiteroles, and crème brûlée.

Sangkhaya
is an addictive combination of coconut milk, eggs, and palm sugar, scented with rosewater or pandan leaves and sometimes vanilla, cinnamon, or nutmeg. Depending on the season, Thai cooks might steam the custard directly in a woody coconut shell, complete with a thin lining of its sweet white meat, or in a small pumpkin or squash, which is sliced into elegant, sugar-glazed wedges for serving. In this latter variation, the dessert makes a seductive minimeal, with protein by way of the egg and vegetable by way of the pumpkin. Fashionable foodies would most certainly approve.

Where:
In New York
, Jaiya at two locations,
jaiya.com
;
in Brookline, MA
, Dok Bua Thai Kitchen, tel 617-232-2955,
dokbua-thai.com
.
Mail order:
For coconuts and palm sugar, Grocery Thai, tel 818-469-9407,
grocerythai.com
.
Further information and recipes:
Thai Food
by David Thompson (2002);
The Taste of Thailand
by Vatcharin Bhumichitr (1988);
Simple Thai Food
by Leela Punyaratabandhu (2014);
amokcuisine.com
(search sankya lapov);
asiandesserts.co
(search sankya lapov).

Add this for a spicy kick.

It’s an American success story with a culinary twist: David Tran, born and raised in Vietnam but of Chinese descent, emigrated to the United States as a refugee in the late 1970s. He found much to his liking, save only a hot sauce that would satisfy him. Settling in Los Angeles, he started making various sauces of his own, including the chile-and garlic-based
sriracha
(pronounced SEE-rotch-ah), a Thai sauce popular in Vietnam and named after the coastal town of Sri Racha in Thailand. Tran began selling his hot sauces from a food truck in L.A.’s Chinatown, and today his company, Huy Fong Foods in the San Gabriel Valley, ships out some 20 million bottles of sriracha each year. Appearing on supermarket and home pantry shelves and restaurant tables all around the world, the American-made, Chinese-Vietnamese-Thai sauce can be considered a classic example of the global culinary melting pot.

It takes only a taste or two of the thick, firecracker-red sauce—identifiable by its clear plastic squeeze bottle, bright-green plastic top, and the cocky rooster adorning the label (the source of its other name, “rooster sauce”)—to understand its success and iconic status. Fiery fresh, ripe red jalapeño peppers are its base, made aromatic with garlic and turned sweet-and-sour by way of vinegar and sugar. Thanks to its exploding popularity, these days you can find sriracha paired with everything from sushi to potato chips. It is an astoundingly versatile ingredient, blended into sauces, mayonnaise, sour cream, cheese spreads, pâtés, beans, and soups that range from classic tomato to Vietnam’s
pho
to seafood chowders. Delightful atop scrambled, poached, or fried eggs, it also makes a perky dip for egg rolls and enlivens meatballs, meat loaf, and even vegetable stews such as ratatouille (see
listing
)and the Cajun corn dish
maque choux
(see
listing
). Sriracha also gives a spicy edge to Italian pasta sauces such as marinara, Bolognese, and amatriciana (see
here
) and can easily replace hot chile flakes on pizza, for a slight hint of the exotic.

Although Tran’s rooster sauce is the most visible sriracha on the American market, there are several other brands, mostly made in Southeast Asia with names like Shark (a thinner, sweeter, more traditional Thai version) and Dragonfly. Try them all if you like. They all have their devoted followers, but it’s hard to beat the balanced complexity and charm—and worldwide popularity—of Tran’s.

Mail order:
Huy Fong Foods,
huyfong.com
; Asian Food Grocer, tel 888-482-2742,
asianfoodgrocer.com
; Temple of Thai,
templeofthai.com
; iGourmet,
igourmet.com
.
Further information and recipes:
The Sriracha Cookbook
by Randy Clemens (2011);
seriouseats.com
(search how to make sriracha);
nydailynews.com
(search make your own sriracha).
See also:
XO Sauce
;
Wasabi
.

The dish first became popular during World War II.

Although first popularized in America during World War II’s food shortages as an inexpensive form of seafood, mussels have been eaten around the world for more than a thousand years. The most popular of the lot are common blue mussels (
Mytilus edulis
), Mediterranean mussels (
M. galloprovincialis
), Baltic mussels (
M. trossulus
), and the green-lipped mussels of New Zealand (
Perna canaliculus
), but there are more than a dozen edible species. And among the most memorable mussel preparations is the distinctly Thai-born version in which the shiny, dark, and thin-shelled mollusks are steamed in a wildly fragrant coconut milk broth laden with lemongrass stalks, kaffir lime leaves, purple basil, and red chile paste.