Khao Soi, Northern Chicken Curry Noodle

I was so inspired by Abby's post on OA on her recent trip to Sripraphai for Khao Soi that I decided to make some tonight for dinner. I wrote down the recipe as I made it, and thought I'd share with everyone here.

Khao Soi is a curry noodle dish from the northern part of Thailand. It is often made with chicken, served over Chinese Bah-mi egg noodle, and garnished with fried noodles, shallots, cilantro, pickled mustard greens, fried whole chillis and a squeeze of lime juice. The dish is a cacophony of taste, each strong and distinct yet they blend into one beautifully complex bowl of spicy and creamy goodness--when done right, of course.

Khao Soi, façon Pim
Northern Chicken Curry Noodle

Ingredients:
For the chicken curry:
3-4 pounds chicken, cut into large pieces
(or you could use 2 legs, 2 thighs and 2 breast pieces, about 3 pounds altogether)
2 ½ tbsp. Red Curry Paste
2 tbsp. Oil
3 cups Coconut Milk
1 tsp. Curry Powder
½ tsp. Turmeric Powder
1 brown (or black) cardamom, grounded (optional)
Water or chicken stock 1-1 ½ cup(s)
½ tsp. Sugar
Fish Sauce to taste

The rest of the ingredients:
About 6-7 (loosely packed) cups of Chinese Bah-mi egg noodle
Some shallots, (very) thinly sliced
1 package of Chinese pickled mustard green, rinsed and thinly sliced
3-4 cups oil for frying
3 limes, cut into slivers
6 dried chillies
a handful of cilantro, chopped

First you make the chicken curry..
1. Into a hot heavy bottom pot, add the oil and the red curry paste, curry powder and turmeric and cook, stirring vigorously, for a few minutes until the curry paste is fragrant. Be careful not to burn the paste.
2. Add 1 cup of coconut milk and let the pan comes back to a boil. Let it bubble for a few minutes over high heat, stirring well, until you begin to see the red oil separating from the coconut milk mixture. Add the second cup of coconut milk, again wait until the oil separate.
3. Add the chicken pieces to the pan, with the 1 cup water and the rest of the coconut milk. Let the pan come back to a boil, then lower the heat to simmer.
4. Add the fish sauce, starting with 2 tbsp. Close the lid and let it simmer until the chicken is done. Check the seasonings, you might need to add more fish sauce. The flavor of the curry should be salty, spicy, and with a very slight after taste of sweetness. When you taste the curry at this stage, it should be a bit saltier than what you would like the final dish to taste like. If it is under-salted now, the addition of the other ingredients at serving time will make it even more insipid.

Then you deal with the noodles and the rest of the garnish..
5. Take 1 cup of the noodle, fluff up until the strands are separated. Fry a little bit at a time in a pan with very hot oil until golden, you will need to flip to noodle once in the pan to get the same color on both sides. Set aside
6. Use the oil to fry up the dried chillis, very quickly, be careful not to let them burn. Set aside.
7. Slice the shallots, rinse and slice the mustard greens, cut up the limes, chop the cilantro. Set aside.

To serve..
8. After the chicken curry is done, heat up a large pot of water to a full boil. Rinse the rest of the fresh noodles first in cold water to wash out the excess starch, then cook in the very hot boiling water for 2-3 minutes. Stir the noodles well to prevent sticking.
9. put some cooked noodles in a bowl, top with the curry, and the garnish to taste. Squeeze some lime juice into the bowl just before eating. You could add the fried chillies if you want more heat.

Bon appetit!

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If you find this recipe useful, please consider giving a few dollars to help my charity drive for Doctors without Borders by clicking on the picture below.

Comments

[AL]

Hey Pim,

How many servings does this recipe serves? I would love to try it and invite some guinea pigs(i.e friends) over to try it too....

[Pim]

Hi there Al,

It will serve about six hungry people, I'd say. But then again, I have a friend who once ate half the content of the pot, alone, in one serving, so I guess it's hard to say. :-)

Try it and let me know what you think.

cheers,
Pim

[Robert]

That looks like the noodle dish I've been imagining for the last two or three years.

Do you know of a recipe for the pickled mustard greens? I think I can find them locally in an Asian market, but I'm never entirely sure I'm buying the right thing.

[Pim]

Robert,

There's a picture of the pickled mustard greens over here:
http://www.foodsubs.com/Pickles.html

Check it out.

Pim

[Elaine]

Wow Pim,
Just came back from Thailand last night. I fell in love with the Khao Soi in Chiang Mai and can't wait to make it tonight. Thanks so much for letting me enjoy my favorite Thai dish at home!

[Pim]

Elaine,

Thanks so much for your compliment.

May I be so gauche as to suggest that, instead of thanking me, you leave a dollar or two for my "Spare us a grain of rice" campaign for Doctors without Borders?

cheers,
Pim

[Adam]

(hmm i'm new to these blogs, and this page was created quite some time ago, so i'm not sure if you'll read this)

i know someone has asked this already, but i was wondering if you know of a recipe for the pickled mustard greens.. i'm very curious how they're made, and a little obsessed with making things from scratch.

i've enjoyed this dish a a couple of thai restaurants here in australia, but it always seems too sweet. would you mind commenting on the thai standard/levels of heat, sweetness, and spiced "curry" flavour? that would be much appreciated

excellent site here..well done..still have a lot to look at

[adam]

*bump*

[Pim]

Hi Adam,

Thanks for the "bump", I didn't see this comment until then. Sorry, i don't know how to make pickle mustard greens. Stuff like that are almost always bought and not home-made, so I have no idea.

They are pretty easy to find at any chinese market though. You should be able to find it.

Curries in most Thai restaurants outside of Thailand are too sweet for my palate as well. My guess is because they use store bought curry pastes rather than mae their own, and that is why they need to add sugar to keep the heat down. I rarely order curries when I eat out because of that. Most curries are NOT supposed to be sweet at all, except for a very few type, such as Panang or Massaman, which are supposed to be just a tad sweet.

Hope this helps.

cheers,
Pim

[bdmike]

Hello Pim,
Thanks for your recipe for these tasty noodles. Every time I order them in Chiang Mai they are accompanied by a chillie paste to add at the table until desired heat is obtained. Any ideas or recipes for this paste? Is it simply Nahm Prik Pow or is it a special paste made for these noodles? Thanks, Mike

[Nat]

Pim, great recipe! Thanks so much. I like to make it with a little coriander and cumin instead of cardamom, from a recipe I got from Suriya Thai in the Mission in SF. Is that spice substitution a slight regional difference?

In fact, I got so inspired by their version of Khao Soi and a 10-day (and probably 20-khao-soi-meal) trip to Chiang Mai last year, that I decided to hunt down every version of the dish in New York City and document my search in this blog, the Quest for Khao Soi.

[jason]

Hi Pim,

Thank you for the recipe. What is the brand of curry did you use for the Khao Soi?

Jason