Rice Noodles with Fish Curry

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Kanom Jin Nam Ya

Serves 2 Cooks in 30 minutes Difficulty EASY

Kanom Jin or sometimes pronounced Khanom Jeen are thin white rice noodles. We are best to forget the English naming straight away as you will hardly ever see this dish named this way in Thailand. You are more likely to hear the dish jokingly referred to as Thai spaghetti.

The rice noodles are served with a vast array of sauces or curries depending which region of Thailand you find yourself in. The dish is also immensely popular and usually eaten in the morning though it makes a great meal at any time of the day.

Kanom jin nam phrik is rice noodles with a sweet peanut based sauce, kanom jin kaeng keaw wan is rice noodles with chicken green curry and kanom jin nam ngiao, a northern speciality is rice noodles with a sauce containing pork blood. To name a few. I have opted for kanom jin nam ya for this recipe. It is rice noodles with a hot and spicy fish curry sauce.

Accompanying the curry sauce, kanom jin is always served with an array of raw vegetables, pickles, leaves and halved hard boiled eggs. Again this will be a seasonal and regional selection.

If you are trying this dish at home and Thai vegetables are hard to come by, you can serve kanom jin nam ya with thickly sliced cucumber and long green beans.

So this is how you make my favourite kanom jin, starting with the ingredients…

Ingredients

  • 2 fish
  • 1 pack of white rice noodles
  • 1 250ml box of coconut milk
  • 1 tbsp red curry paste
  • 1 tsp shrimp paste
  • 1 tbsp fish sauce
  • 1 tbsp palm sugar
  • 2 tsp pork stock
  • 4-6 kafir lime leaves
  • 1 lemon grass stalk
What you will need.

Method

  1. Lay the fish in a large sauce pan and add water, enough to just cover the fish. Roughly smash the lemon grass with the flat edge of a knife and add it to the water along with three kafir lime leaves and a pinch of salt. Bring to the boil and simmer until the fish is well cooked.
  2. Keep the water from boiling the fish and put to one side. Removing all bones first, smash the fish into a paste using a pestle and mortar.
  3. Add the coconut milk to a sauce pan along with the curry paste and shrimp paste and bring to the boil, stirring often.
  4. Add the fish paste, three kafir lime leaves, pork stock, palm sugar, fish sauce and the left over water from boiling the fish. Add the water according to your preference of sauce thickness. Stir well and simmer for a few minutes.
  5. Test, adjust seasoning if necessary and remove from the heat.
  • Boiling the fish
    Boiling the fish
  • Smashing the fish into a paste
    Making the fish paste
  • Cooking the curry sauce
    Cooking the curry sauce

To Serve

Add some rice noodles to a bowl and top with your curry sauce and eat with a platter of raw vegetables, pickles, leaves and hard boiled eggs.

Hope you enjoy my Kanom Jin Nam Ya by Apple 🍎 Riverside Thai Cooking in Khao Lak.