‘Mieng Kham’ A tasty kale appetizer do it yourself ‘เมี่ยงคำ’

Hi there,

I guess everyone have a great time in this season with sunshine. We have a lot of rain start in this month of June and wild roses are blooming. So the climate here is pretty wet and green with black flies and mosquitoes army, a feature of the rainforest. It is frustrate sometimes that we must check the weather so often. Boots and raincoat is a must to have in this part, shorts are not considered to wear in the area.

Today our presentation is back to the Tradition Thai cuisine again. As Kale is still in season so it is nice to do something with this fresh green leaf and good nutrition.  ‘Mieng Kham’ is another selection for a bite size of leaves added condiments and top with small amount of sauce. Tasty of chewing with herbs aroma of ginger, shallot, lime,  toast coconut and peanuts and with a hint of spicy from chili. The sauce make this petit bite a tasty. This appetizer is popular to make in rainy season in Thailand (Famous to make in May-June) “Mieng” is one of the dishes that best epitomizes the simple brilliance of Thai cuisine, with a few foreigners have heard of it or even few Thais enjoy it on a regular basis. The traditional “Mieng Kham” is a tasty do-it-yourself an hors d’ oeuvre with different tastes and textures coming together in a one bite-sized: “Mieng” means “many” and “Kham” means “one bite”. Various condiments preparation in small dice cubes then placed together on Kale {The original present on a dark green “bai cha pluu” or wild tea leaf} topped with a special sauce, then wrapped up for one bite. Hope you enjoy 🙂

The sauce

1/3 cup or 80 ml of Fish sauce

1 cup or estimated 220 grams  Coconut Palm sugar, from Thailand 100% pure palm sugar

1/4 cup or 60 ml of water

1 Tbsp  Lemon grass, fine chopped

1 Tbsp  Great galanga, fine chopped

2 Tbsp  Dried shrimps, our presentation today is not available

1/4 cup  coconut grated

1/4 cup  Thai shallot, fine slices

Preparation

A sauce pan, add water, palm sugar and fish sauce and bring to a boil. Then add the rest of ingredients and keep simmer until the sauce became thicken compare as marmalade. Turn off the heat and set aside while prepare another condiments.

Note: The taste of this sauce is first salt follow up with sweet and when you make one bite you can also get sour taste from lime.

The condiments 

1 bunch of Kale, prefer flat leaves to easy to put on condiments, use knife to cut off the middle line and cut into square shape or your favourite style

1 green lime, prefer a thin skin, dice small cube

1 red onion or shallot, dice small cube

1 head ginger, dice small cube

1 cup of peanut, toast in oven or pan and skinned

Toast coconut (thin fine slice, in this presentation I use half coconut meat), thin slices before toast use 275 – 300 Farenheit for about 20 minutes.

Dried shrimps, our presentation today is not available

5-10 Thai chili, green and red, chopped

one coconut

grated for sauce ingredient

fine slices for toast

after toast coconut

fine chopped lemon grass

fine chopped great galangal

thin slice red onion or shallot

coconut palm sugar

Ingredients for to make ‘Mieng Kham’ sauce

toast the peanuts

Boil water, palm sugar and fish sauce together

add the rest of ingredients

The sauce that just finished

Preparation for fresh kale

To serve : together the sauce and condiments