Plying With Fire

A few weeks ago a husband and wife team, who were writing a story about new Bangkok restaurants, were asking me questions. They were on the other side of the bar, sipping martinis, which I've found is a very agreeable way for journalists and I to conduct interviews. I stood there and tried to say something clever, while watching the drink tickets come in.

Then I got an order and lost my train of thought, just as they asked me “what is your favorite ingredient in Thai cooking?"  

Prawns? Lemongrass? Mint? Roasted sticky rice powder? Lime leaves? Fried shallots? Or maybe something more elemental, say, fish sauce or palm sugar or coconut cream? I don’t know. There are so many.

Then I started to mix the drink. Cucumber, smash. Passionfruit, just a bit. Gin, lots. Lime, ice, shake, pour. Where's the ginger ale? Shit. Seriously, where is the goddamn ginger ale? Is it down there, under the sink? There it is, behind the ice bucket. Top it, slice of cucumber, stir, wipe glass, table eight.

And I'm back. 

"Now what were we talking about?"

"Your favorite ingredient."

"Oh, right."

I looked at what the two were eating. Duck larb -- a clamorous salad that resonates with sour and spicy and smoky notes – smoky, because we add smoked duck breast to the mixture. They were also eating ribs, which I slow-braise in a sort of tamarind barbecue sauce with lemongrass and chili and finish on the grill, for another taste of smoke. And stir-fried flowers with egg, which I have my wok cook blast with heat at the beginning so that my cast iron woks breathe their smoky heat into the food.

And I had one of those empty-headed revelations that you get when you’re doing four things at once. “Smoke. I like to play around with smoke. Yeah. That’s my favorite ingredient.”

A country meal of beef and two jiim jeow dips, cooked in Nong Khai, Isaan.

Thing is, it’s true. I’ve seen smoke disappear, in its myriad forms, as kitchens modernize across Asia. Smoke is drifting away from Chinese cooking, as home cooks stir-fry over low-heat ranges, in non-stick woks. Many mainland restaurants would rather drown vegetables in peanut oil and garlic than try to execute a proper, smoky stir-fry (it’s easier to do so).

I remember the first time I tasted a stir-fry of mushrooms, in a grimy Chengdu alleyway at dusk, from a wok that was so hot it glowed. It was cold and damp outside and I wondered if the cook could poke his metal spatula right through the wok (I know now that you can’t). There was chili, and soup spoons of salt and msg, and soy and oil and cornstarch maybe even a dusting of spring onions in those mushrooms. But it was the smoke, which sprung out of a pressed disk of coal underneath and heated that wok a shade of tangerine, like a cow-brand, that made the mushrooms sing.

Smoke is disappearing from street food, as more cooks flash-fry meats in little saucepots over gas rings, rather than slow-grilling the way they should and always have. Smoke is disappearing from Thai food as more people eat in sterile mall food courts in between shopping for tee-shirts and outfits for their dogs to wear. Meatballs and sausages are cooked over middling electric coils, as fat collects in little detachable plastic trays. 

A charcoal grill is not difficult to install in a restaurant kitchen in unregulated Bangkok, but fewer restaurants do. Charcoal is dirty and it is tedious and it is absolutely essential if you are going to serve Northeastern Thai food.

Smoke is disappearing from the ripping-hot red dried chilies that people used to roast in their woks and grind in their kroks (that’s a mortar and pestle), but now buy pre-packaged in the super or wet market. These flat, lifeless chili flakes are not allowed in my kitchen. (It is also not hard to roast your own chilies. Cough.) It is disappearing, too, from northern curry pastes and nahm prik pao, where shallots and garlic and other things should be grilled and smashed into heady pastes. 

Pounding roasted chilies into powdered form, for cooking.

Sometimes, when I spy a guest nervously start to rock back and forth in their chair, as they wait for their chicken wings or their steak nahm tok or a fish grilled in a leaf to arrive, I smile inside. Because two floors up my grill man Pi Bun is carefully cooking their food over the slow, low coals that people from Lao and Isaan have cooked over for centuries. Pi Bun knows about smoke.  

He knows that it takes some time. But when the food arrives, suffused with the perfume of mangrove charcoal, it’s worth it.

It’s the best ingredient I’ve got.   

 

Comments

[Account Deleted]

Totally agree. But if you don't own a restaurant with a modern kitchen still try and make sure you have proper ventilation, heck, ours is basically open air and our fry chef still nearly died from sucking in all that smoke every day. Markets are the same. I think they're all taking years off there life!

[Atha]

F**king yum! So glad to have you back writing on the regular again Wris!

[Jarrett]

Eddy - I've got a 1.5hp engine and a 12' hood to suck out the smoke. It also sucks out all my air-con, but it's worth it.

Tks Atha. Come over and eat sometime!

-J

[Peter Moskos]

Do you have any position on the use of Liquid Smoke as a poor-man's substitute?

As to ventilation, I put a standard cheap window fan in the window above the stove. It works pretty well. And reading this reminds me I need to let my wok get hotter.

[Account Deleted]

@Jarret @Peter Our kitchen has a roof but no walls and 3 hoods. It was locally made and installed but obviously shoddy. Every kitchen here uses them. Anyway, I think it was 1 of those things - like someone who's never smoked before and still get cancer.

Cheers

[Jarrett]

Ive never used liquid smoke -- do you use it occasionally? Never tried it, but I have tasted it and its (obviously) not the same... I think in an apartment kitchen Id just cook something else... You can hot-smoke pretty easily in a wok, though, Peter. Just line with foil, put some rice in there, a rack above, cap it tight. It works pretty well. Fun experiment, anyway.

[Peter Moskos]

I have liquid smoke, and I want to use it more. I like the idea of liquid smoke because it is such a pure, simple product. It really is smoke captured in water. How could you go wrong?

Think of it this way, if I made my own liquid smoke, I'd be the coolest kid in Queens, right?

I do use it occasionally but honestly, not too much. One problem may be that Liquid Smoke is usually hickory, geared more toward the BBQ crowd than the Thai herbs.

I wonder if charcoal liquid smoke exists...

Maybe I need to experiment more. I guess the real questions are 1) does it taste good? 2) is it best used at the beginning or end of the cooking? and 3) how much? If I come up with any answers, I'll let you know.

The wok smoked-rice concept is good. I'll try that. But I'm less interested in actually smoking things than giving my normal cooking a smokey flavor. I wonder what Zora would say if I set up a charcoal wok station on the roof? I'm sure she and the fire department would love it.

And it's hotter in New York than Bangkok right now. A sure sign of the rapture. It wouldn't so bad if somebody sold Thai iced tea on every block.

[Peter Moskos]

I just put a few dashes of liquid smoke (6 drops?) into a sauce for a swiss chard stir fry.

The sauce was thai red pepper paste (from a jar), tamarind concentrate, 1 patty palm sugar, shrimp paste, and a few chopped dried shrimp. I cooked all of that a bit over low heat, added fish sauce, and set aside. I whipped the wok clean, jacked up the heat, waited, added some of the strained oil, fried the greens (with a bit of onion), added the chunky sauce (and some water). Topped it all with crispy garlic. Anyway, the recipe isn't important, though it was delicious (and the kind of thing I like making myself for breakfast).

The liquid smoke verdict? Subtle, but a definite smokey plus! I think any more and the hickory flavor might be distracting. But a few drops added early works great.

Also, one of the nice things about the heat here is that the palm oil is liquid. That only happens about 4 months a year. It gets solid under about 75 degrees... bet you didn't know that in Thailand!

[Peter Moskos]

Experiment #2: No liquid smoke. But pork marinated in miso and chile paste. Then I got the wok as hot as I could (which is not glowing hot) and fried the pork in its lard (which I had rendered while prepping everything). The sugars in the miso, I suspect, browned and char very quickly. There's a fine line between the taste of smoke and the taste of good char. This walked that line very nicely! Hot wok was key. So is decent ventilation.

[Lara dunston]

Well I wonder who those two martini drinking writers were... :)

Jarrett, you didn't tell us you had this blog also. I was checking to see where the Soul Food to Street Food post was ranking (what lives we lead, hey?) and discovered this - and Stuart's interview with you too. I'll link to that as well.

loved this post. I hope you can find time to write here more.

[Peter Moskos]

Jarrett, I have a question:

What the hell is Mud Fish Sauce (AKA: Mam Ca Loc)?

I bought a jar, opened it, and got scared. I mean, I know fish sauce can smell a bit funky. But this is off-the-charts horrible! Assuming it smells the way it is supposed to (how would I know if it's bad?), what could I possible cook that would end up tasting good?

The ingredients are mudfish, water, salt. It's more a paste than a liquid. And I did I mention is smells like rot?

[John Shoane]

Yep. ive got to say i loved that roasted pork, thai street food. You says it called jimjaw?

You sometimes see people selling it at street stalls, they use like an oil drum and an oven and there is a fire in the middle of it and the pork is hung around the edges.

Loveley with some kao neow and that dark chili sauce aroi maak

[Jarrett]

Hey Peter,

Im not an expert on Viet food but I think what youve got there is a freshwater, fermented fish sauce. In Thai its called plaa raa -- its a fiercely smelly thing, that is not necessarily suggestive of rotting fish, which it is. Whole river fish, water, rice and salt are fermented for several months in buckets or barrels in tropical heat. The fish is eaten after fermentation, and the resulting liquid -- usually the color of mud -- is used to season food. Its very common in Isaan and Lao cuisine. I like it sometimes, but am not a fan of som tam lao, the papaya salad seasoned with plaa raa rather than saltwater fish sauce (nam plaa). If thats what youve got, I can understand your surprise. Cheers. Jarrett    

[Peter Moskos]

Thanks. The bottle I have is from Thailand. I guess I could only read (and type!) the Vietnamese and English names.

Regardless, you know damn well I can't compete with Isaan. I'm not man enough.

And it's garbage night tonight.

[Elliptical reviews]

No offense, but if there's a facebook like button, it'll be much easier for me to share.

[losimkus]

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