DIY soup for the perfect taste
Basic kway tio. Click on the picture for a pictorial guide for making perfect noodle soup.
You go into a restaurant – anywhere in the world. You order your favourite dish on the menu. Big disappointment. It just doesn’t taste the way you think it should. Maybe they’ve left a couple of ingredients out, or they’ve decided to get fancy and add some ingredients that just don’t belong in there.
You can chuck some salt or pepper, or both, into the mix to distract your taste buds, but unless you’re one of those people who send bottles of wine or meals back just to demonstrate how important they are, you’re probably going to eat the darn thing while quietly swearing to yourself that you’re never going back to that restaurant again.
Thailand has the perfect answer to this: noodle soup that you tailor to your taste exactly. It’s called kway tio, and you’ll find it served up by the roadside and in food halls everywhere in Thailand. Look out for places that have a small glass box standing on the counter containing a variety of noodles, typically the triad of thin rice noodles (sen mee khao), wide, flat noodles (sen yai) and yellow egg wheat noodles (ba mee).
The broth – chicken, pork or beef – is kept simmering in deep metal pans all day. Depending on what the cook serves, you can also opt for additions of sliced pork or shredded chicken, or meat balls (look cheen) made from prawn, squid, fish, beef, chicken or pork.
The soup with noodles is delivered to your table, usually garnished with fried garlic, fresh coriander (cilantro) leaves and chopped spring onion, and with a side plate of vegetables, typically fresh bean sprouts and sliced cabbage.
You are now ready to start creating the soup of your dreams.
On the table you’ll find a bottle of fish sauce and pots containing chilli powder, fresh chilies in vinegar, chilies in fish sauce, sugar, crushed peanuts and other spices, sauces and condiments. (Click on the picture above for a pictorial guide.) The basic soup contains no chili, so if you’re really not into spicy food, kway tio is still the perfect dish. Taste your soup. Should it be more salty? Gently add a few drops of fish sauce. This is powerful stuff, so don’t shake the bottle too vigorously or you’ll end up with soup that is inedible. Too sour? Add some sugar. Too sweet? Add some vinegar (you can avoid the chillies). The peanuts add body and a nice nuttiness to the soup. Add some bean sprouts and cabbage for crunchy texture.
Experiment, adding tastes a little at a time so as not to overdo things. There’s no rush, is there? So take your time to create a noodle soup precisely to your taste. Kway tio is traditionally eaten with a spoon and chopsticks but if you’re not a dab hand with knitting needles, you’ll find you can manage just fine with the spoon alone.
If the shop has a small boat in front of it (the kind you see in all the pictures of the floating market outside Bangkok), this means it serves kway tio reua – boat noodle soup. The broth for this is dark and much stronger – many places add fresh blood to thicken it up (say, “Mai ow lerd” if you don’t want this), and the soup is served in small bowls with a large variety of fresh veg on the side. Some of these places offer a sixth bowl free for anyone who can get through the first five bowls. You’ll often see diners with towers of bowls next to them.
If you don’t want to eat by the roadside, most of these little restaurants will give you a take-away kit, with everything in plastic bags. You’ll end up with a lot of bags, big and small, so please dispose of these responsibly.
Price per bowl is about 25 to 30 baht. So if (despite this guide) you manage to make a mess of things, you can afford to start all over again with a fresh bowl…
