Thai Street Vendor Noodles, 'Ba Mee Haeng'

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Ba Mee Haeng is a noodle dish that can be served without soup stock ("ba mee" are noodles, and "haeng" means dry, or without stock), as we made it here. You can also ladle some soup stock over it if preferred.

This recipe is very authentic, and requires a lot of steps, thus demonstrating why most people would buy this from a street vendor cart rather than making it at home.

The key to a good ba mee haeng is the pork & garlic mixture. A good street vendor selling ba mee will prepare a big batch of this each day. The pork used should have lots of fat, then cooked to release the fat and make crispy pork, a few pieces should top off the noodles. We also like to add some sliced red pork to the top of the noodles (some local Asian stores might sell a fresh, already-cooked red pork).

The noodles we used are fresh Chinese-style egg noodles, often found refrigerated in supermarkets.

Ingredients

Fresh egg noodles
Fresh pork belly fat (or pork skin with fat)
Fresh garlic, peeled and finely chopped
Sliced BBQ pork
Fresh shrimps
Dried shiitake mushrooms *optional* (soaked in hot water 10 minutes and thinly sliced)
Bok Choy or any green vegetables, large chopped
Green onion and cilantro, chopped
Thin soy sauce
Thai pepper powder

Method

Chop pork fat into large dice, add to wok, fry on medium-low heat. Add a few tablespoons of vegetable oil. Keep stirring, do not let it burn. Cook until pork releases liquid fat and the pork belly turns golden and crispy. If your pork doesn't have much fat, add a bit more vegetable oil. Remove the crispy pork to a plate and set aside. Leave the oil in the wok. Next, turn the heat down a bit, and add chopped garlic into the oil, keep stirring until the garlic turns light brown. Then add a little bit of salt (it helps the garlic stay crispy). Now, put crispy pork back into the wok with the garlic, stir together, and transfer all oil, garlic and pork to a bowl. Set aside.

Final Preparation and Serving

In a large pot of boiling water, blanch your green vegetables. Then put a small amount into a serving bowl. Next, top the blanched greens with blanched egg noodles. Add to the noodles one spoon of fried pork and garlic with oil, some sliced BBQ pork, one or two cooked shrimps, green onion, cilantro, shiitake, and Thai white pepper powder. Season with soy sauce, and a dash of msg if you like, mix well. Enjoy!

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