Khanom Jeen Nam Ngiao

Ingredients

• 600 g pork ribs, cut into short pieces
• 300 g minced pork
• 250 g fresh pork blood cubes, cut into 2 cm dice
• 20 g dried kapok flowers (dok ngiao)
• 500 g small ripe tomatoes, halved
• 10 dried long red chillies
• 8 shallots
• 10 garlic cloves
• 2 tbsp fermented soybean paste (tua nao), or 1 tbsp shrimp paste
• 1 tsp salt
• 3 tbsp vegetable oil
• 3 tbsp fish sauce
• 1 tbsp palm sugar
• 2.5 litres water
• 800 g fresh khanom jeen (fermented rice vermicelli)
• Bean sprouts, pickled mustard greens, crisp pork rind, fried garlic, lime wedges and coriander, to serve

Before you cook

• Soak the dried kapok flowers in warm water for 30 minutes, then drain them and pull off any hard stalk ends.
• Soak the dried chillies in warm water for 15 minutes and drain them.
• Pound the chillies, shallots, garlic, fermented soybean and salt to a coarse red paste.
• Rinse the pork blood cubes gently in cold water and drain them.
• Halve the tomatoes and set every garnish out in its own small bowl.

Steps

1. Put the pork ribs and the water into a large pot and bring it to a boil.
2. Skim off the grey foam, then lower the heat and simmer the ribs for 40 minutes until the meat pulls back from the bone.
3. Heat the oil in a wok over medium heat and fry the chilli paste for 4 minutes, until it darkens and smells deeply savoury.
4. Add the minced pork to the wok and fry for 4 minutes, breaking it up as it cooks.
5. Scrape the entire contents of the wok into the rib pot.
6. Add the halved tomatoes and the drained kapok flowers, then simmer for 20 minutes.
7. Slide in the pork blood cubes and simmer very gently for 10 minutes, keeping the pot off a hard boil so they stay soft.
8. Season with the fish sauce and palm sugar, then taste: the broth should be tart from the tomatoes, salty, and brick red rather than orange.
9. Simmer for a final 10 minutes so everything settles together.
10. Loosen the khanom jeen noodles under warm running water and coil a nest of them into each bowl.
11. Ladle the hot broth over the noodles, making sure everyone gets rib meat, blood and kapok flower.
12. Let each person add bean sprouts, pickled greens, pork rind, fried garlic, coriander and a hard squeeze of lime at the table.