🇹🇭 Thailand · Bangkok, Thailand (canal vendors; Victory Monument today)
Boat noodles
A dark, rich Thai noodle soup of pork or beef, meatballs and morning glory in a herbed broth thickened with blood, served in small bowls that diners stack.
Origin and history
Boat noodles are named for the vendors who sold them from boats on Thailand's canals and rivers. SBS places boat vending on the waterways of Ayutthaya, and says the canals of Bangkok became major marketplaces after the capital moved there in 1782. In the 20th century most canals were drained or filled for roads and most vendors moved into shops, by the 1970s; the canal-side alley by Victory Monument is a classic place to eat them. The small bowls stayed.
Make it at home
- Makes
- 6 servings
- Total time
- 2 h
- Hands-on
- 50 min
Ingredients
- 1 kg2.2 lb pork bones or beef bones, blanched 5 minutes and rinsed
- 3 L12 cups water
- 5 slices galangal
- 3 coriander roots, washed
- 5 cloves garlic, smashed
- 2 tsp black peppercorns
- 2 stalks lemongrass, bruised
- 2 cinnamon sticks, small
- 3 tbsp fermented bean curd (red tofu), crushed
- 3 tbsp light soy sauce
- 1 tbsp dark soy sauce
- 50 g1.75 oz rock sugar, or 3 tbsp sugar
- 1 tbsp salt, to taste
- 250 ml1 cup fresh pork blood, optional but traditional; see notes
- 150 ml2/3 cup coconut milk
- 300 g10 oz pork loin or beef, sliced very thin
- 12 pork or beef meatballs (look chin)
- 400 g14 oz thin rice noodles (sen lek)
- 1 bunch morning glory (phak bung), cut in lengths
- bean sprouts, fried garlic, pork crackling, chili flakes, chilies in vinegar, sugar, coriander and spring onion, to serve
Method
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1. Put the blanched bones, water, galangal, coriander roots, garlic, peppercorns, lemongrass, cinnamon, bean curd, both soy sauces and the sugar into a pot. Simmer gently for 1 hour 30 minutes, skimming, until the broth is dark, fragrant and sweet-salty.
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2. Strain the broth back into a clean pot and season with salt. Poach the thin pork slices in it for 1 minute and set aside, then add the meatballs and cook until they float.
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3. If using blood, whisk it with the coconut milk, then strain it through a sieve into the broth. Simmer 5 minutes without letting it boil hard; the broth turns thick and darker. Without blood, add only the coconut milk and a little more dark soy sauce.
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4. Boil the noodles for 1 minute until tender, then drain. Blanch the morning glory and bean sprouts for 30 seconds.
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5. Serve in small bowls: noodles, morning glory, sprouts, pork slices and meatballs, covered with hot broth.
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6. Top with fried garlic, crackling and coriander, and let diners season with chili flakes, chilies in vinegar and sugar.
Notes
- The soup is named for the vendors who sold it from boats on canals and rivers; the bowls are deliberately tiny, so diners order two or three and the bill is counted from the stack of empties. Chilies in vinegar, sugar and chili flakes are added at the table.
- SBS calls cow's blood the most important ingredient of the broth, added at the end as a thickener and flavour enhancer; the chef David Thompson, quoted there, is not a fan, and a Melbourne chef leaves it out and simmers beef bones for many hours instead. Fresh pig or cow blood is hard to find outside Asian or halal markets; leaving it out gives a lighter broth (a clear, blood-free bowl is called nam sai), and a spoon of dark soy keeps the colour. Do not substitute packaged blood sausage.
- Beef (nuea) and pork (mu) are both used, with meatballs and often offal. Noodle choice is often sen lek, sen yai, bee hoon or egg noodles; protein can also be chicken or liver.
- The Thai soup spice set sold in packs is a shortcut for the galangal, cinnamon, coriander root and pepper in the broth.
- Make-ahead: the broth without blood keeps three days; add blood and coconut milk when reheating.
Adapted from Hungry in Thailand, Thai boat noodles (kuay teow reua), Bangkok Up, Boat noodles in Bangkok, and SBS Food, Sinking history: Thai boat noodles.
At the festivals
No festival we list has printed it on a menu yet.