Khao Soi Noodles

Khao Soi is a very well known dish at Chiang Mai in Northern Thailand. It is a rich, velvety, herby noodle soup filled with coconut curry flavor.

In the past few years, John always traveled to Chiang Mai in November for a friendly downhill mountain bike race. Unfortunately, with COVID-19, the event got canceled this year. We were craving Khao Soi, and for some reason, not many restaurants in Hong Kong serve Northern Thai dishes. I might as well just cook it myself and bring the Northern Thai dish to our home.

I came across the below paste recipe from the Bosh site a long time ago, and made some adaptations. On top of the paste, I also made vegan mushroom "bacon" as a topping. The below recipe should be good for 4 to 5 servings, depends on your appetite!

Paste:

- 4 red eyes chillies (can add more or less, depends how spicy you want it to be)

- 2 to 5 lemongrass stalks

- 3 to 5 shallots

- 6 cloves of garlic

- 4inches of ginger

- Small bunch of fresh cilantro

- 1TBSP of ground coriander (if using coriander seeds, toast it first with the same measurement)

- 2 tsp of turmeric powder

- 1 tsp of curry powder

- 1/2 to 1 cup of water

Blend all these together to form a paste.

I roasted a bunch of vegetables such as Brussel sprouts, broccoli, cauliflower, pumpkin, long beans, and bell peppers with a bit of balsamic vinegar, salt and pepper.

Vegan mushrooms "bacon" recipe:

URL: https://www.cookinglight.com/recipes/vegan-shiitake-mushroom-bacon

Adaptation: I cut down the oil. I was using non-stick to cook it on the stovetop for 10 minutes.

Cooking Instructions:

Heat up a pot, and pour in the paste. Let it cook for 2 to 3 minutes. Then add 1/4 cup of soy sauce, 1 can of coconut milk (400ml), 1 to 2 TBSP of sugar, and 3 cups of vegetable broth. Let it boil, and turn to low heat to simmer for 5 minutes. Throw in tofu puffs if you have some on hand while simmering. Taste and adjust seasonings accordingly.

On a different pot, boil some hot water and cook the noodles as per the packaging instructions. I used Konjac noodles for tonight's dinner, and it turned out very delicious. Take out the noodles, and use the same pot of hot water to boil the leafy greens if you have it on hand (we used baby spinach). Otherwise, you can toss out the water, and drain the noodles.

Assemble everything in your bowl. Noodles, roasted veggies, soup with tofu puffs and sprinkle vegan mushroom "bacon", cilantro and scallions as toppings before serving.

Bon Appetit!