Kanom jeen: the Thai curry noodle buffet
Part one of a series on Thailand's native noodle
Little known beyond its borders, one could argue kanom jeen might be Thailand’s most beloved noodle. These thin, sticky rice strands are both cheap and plentiful, sold in shops and markets throughout the country. Kanom jeen noodles are mainly enjoyed with curries and a remarkable selection of sides and condiments, ranging from vegetables (including fresh, blanched, fried, and coconut-simmered) and fruits to herbs and pickles.
This is part one of a series on kanom jeen (which you may also see written as kanom jin), where I will talk about what it is, how it’s made, regional variations and accompaniments, and I’ll eventually share some recipes too.
Kanom jeen are a type of extruded rice noodle that, while versatile and utilised in a variety of dishes in Thailand, are most popularly served at room temperature as a base for various curries and sauces. While there are outliers, these noodles aren’t typically cooked with other ingredients. Rather, they are treated as a blank canvas for curry in the same way as plain steamed rice.
It’s the sort of dish that comprises a wide and popular enough category of food that many (many, many, many) restaurants specialise exclusively in kanom jeen.
The sticky skeins are accompanied by an array of fresh herbs, vegetables, and other sides that might include pickles, vegetables simmered in coconut milk and/or tempura. The accompaniments, as much a star of the show as the curry, vary by vendor and region, but common options include basil (lemon and Thai), bean sprouts, long beans, cucumber, fermented mustard greens and shredded cabbage. These fresh ingredients are essential to the dish, adding contrasting flavours and textures that allow for each bite to be customised.
My introduction to kanom jeen
My first encounter with kanom jeen was at a shop (no longer in business) in the complex that houses the Chamlong’s Asoke vegetarian community near Chatuchak Market in Bangkok. As I walked up to the road, past the strange landscape of half demolished clubs with pristine exposed toilets that stood in the area for years, a man approached and greeted me. “Closed today,” he said. He asked if I was vegetarian and I nodded. He smiled and pointed me toward a small shop a few metres down. “Open. Vegetarian,” he told me.
I followed his line of sight, his outward stretched finger, and wandered into a garden space, hemmed in by potted plants and vines, facing a kitchen where an older couple were looking back at me. They spoke no English, me no Thai.
One approached and opened the lids of a couple of large pots, stirring their contents, and invited me to have a look. They leaned their face over a pot and inhaled deeply, indicating I too should have a sniff. They held up a rimmed melamine dish that contained a couple of coils of noodles and pointed back to the pots. I laughed and shrugged. They, seemingly as amused as I was by this exchange, realised we would likely get nowhere with spoken language.
After selecting and ladling a couple of curries of their choosing over the noodles, they led me to a table filled with fresh herbs and vegetables. I looked at them pleadingly, hoping my eyes could communicate what I was thinking and feeling: I really don’t understand what to do here. They laughed, plucked a few sprigs of lemon basil, and put them on my plate along with some other fresh vegetables. Finally they ushered me to a table, placed the dish in front of me, and pottered off back to the kitchen.
Before leaving, I gestured with my hands to a generalised everything before handing them a pen and a notebook. They scribbled a few words in Thai: ขนมจีน น้ำยา น้ำพริก. Translation: kanom jeen, nam ya, nam prik.
I would later learn these two curries are among the most popular in the kanom jeen curry canon. Nam ya is an aromatic coconut based red curry textured with blended angel mushrooms (similar to oyster mushrooms) at vegetarian restaurants in Thailand. In the central Thai version of this dish, the predominant flavour comes from krachai กระชาย, or fingerroot, a rhizome in the same family as ginger. Its flavour is pleasantly earthy and medicinal. Southern versions favour fresh turmeric over fingerroot.
Nam prik (not to be confused with the Thai culinary category of chilli relishes, also called nam prik) is a sweeter curry, ideally balanced with some sour element(s) like tamarind, lime, or sour/bitter orange. Toasted ground mung beans impart a nutty and smoky flavour, but nowadays it’s quite common for vendors to use peanuts. Richness is derived from coconut milk. Were more foreigners to try it, I’d wager kanom jeen nam prik would come out tops in more of those faux intellectual windbag top ten lists every travel blogger seems to love penning.
Where does kanom jeen come from?
Most noodle culture in Thailand has its origins in Chinese cuisine, and, confusingly the word ‘jeen’ in Thai literally translates to ‘China’ or ‘Chinese,’ but kanom jeen aren’t believed to come from China. One of the more compelling origin stories, though still speculative, places its origins in Mon communities, particularly in Ayutthaya province, where it’s assumed a Thai speaker misheard Mon language and the word ‘kanom’ thus deviated in meaning from its original form.
The story goes that a Thai person asked of the Mon making these noodles, “what are you doing?” The Mon replied in their own language “kanom jeen gok sem jia gam,” announcing the white rice noodles are cooked, inviting the Thai to join for a meal. From then on, as the story goes, Thai people called this food ‘kon om jin’, or kanom jeen, and its definition became distorted to mean the specific type of rice noodles known as kanom jeen today.
How kanom jeen noodles are made
Traditionally, making kanom jin was a laborious process, usually undertaken for special occasions when a large group of people could be gathered to help—be it a big household, friends, or an entire village—to ease the strenuous task.
The traditional process requires many tools and a lot of time, starting with soaking rice for a few days before milling the now broken grains and soaking water into a slurry. After an additional few days of fermentation, the water and fine components from the ground rice separate. The water is discarded and the solids bundled into cloths to partially cook in boiling water so that only the outer layer of the dough is cooked.
The partially cooked mass is then worked into a more flexible and workable dough with gigantic pestles, adding enough water to make it smooth and silky in the process. From here it's extruded into fine strands directly into a large vat of boiling water. The noodles cook for a short time before being transferred to cool in cold water. Finally, the noodles are formed by hand into skeins, ready to be sold or eaten.
Today the process is simplified. While you'll often hear people still refer to kanom jeen as fermented noodles, the factory made noodles of present are typically more akin to Vietnamese bún noodles. This is why you can use easily available thin extruded dried rice noodles as a believable substitute for what's on the market in Thailand today. More on that in a future post.
Once a food reserved for celebrations, kanom jeen is now an everyday meal enjoyed across Thailand. In future I will write more about regional variations and preferences, rant about the lack of herb appreciation in Western cultures, and talk about different kanom jeen accompaniments. I’ll eventually get around to sharing some recipes to bring it all together, but give me a minute because I’ve got impending supper clubs to plan for and then I’m off to Thailand for all of October.