Songkran: Thai Beef Noodles with Morning Glory
It's Thai New Year - also known as Songkran - from today until the 15th, and to celebrate the nice people at Thai Taste sent me a selection of their ingredients to inspire me to create a Thai meal. I love Thai food a lot since I went last year, so I was keen to get cooking. They do all sorts from full on curry kits to Sriracha sauce and coconut milk, but I settled on their basic Red Thai Curry Paste as my starting point and came up with this Thai style beef and noodle dish with morning glory - a beautiful Thai vegetable a bit like strawlike spinach, read more here if you like.
Here's what you'll need if you want to make my dish yourself:
Clockwise from top left: Rice noodles, 250g organic steak mince, handful of peanuts, Ung Choi (morning glory), 1/2 packet Thai Taste Red Curry Paste, 1cm ginger, 1 spring onion, 2 hot red chillis, 2 cloves garlic.
Start by soaking your noodles in a bowl of tepid water for about ten minutes. Pro tip: use a bowl that allows the noodles to be completely submerged, unlike me.
Prep all your veg by chopping the chilli and garlic, grating the ginger, slicing the morning glory into three or four (don't make it too small or it will wilt down to nothing) and chop the spring onion into matchsticks.
Now mix the curry paste into the beef mince. If you're more prepared that I was then you could leave it to marinate in the sauce for a few hours and deepen the flavour.
If not, never mind, just start frying off the mince. Use a large non-stick pan or wok and don't be afraid of a high heat. I didn't use any oil as my mince was 15% fat, but you can if you wish. After a minute or two, add the chilli and garlic to the pan.
Once that's all sizzling nicely and the beef is cooked through add the morning glory and ginger:
Once nicely wilted, throw in your noodles and mix well:
Add in the peanuts and raw spring onions at the last minute.
I served mine along with fish sauce, lime and sugar which allows you to self-season like in Thailand, but feel free to add these in during the cooking process if you wish.
Happy New Year Thailand.