A few days ago I was out of town and when I was at the only grocery store in the area the only organic lettuce they had was butter lettuce. Butter lettuce is normally not my thing. It is rather plain and I much prefer some type of leaf lettuce, the darker the green color the better.
But something made me think today, because butter lettuce can be used as a wrap for miang kum. I haven’t had miang kum for quite a while but still remember how delightful it was. Inspired, I put my mind to creating a vegan miang kum since the original calls for shrimp.
One thing about the miang kum that I remember is that the contents were kind of crispy. So, thinking about what would be suitable, I thought of either thinly-sliced tofu that could be stir-fried until crisp, or else crumbled tempeh which likewise can be slow cooked until golden crisp. In fact when I make tempeh I almost always like to cook it until it is slightly crispy. When it turns golden and crisp it acquires this incredible nutty flavor which reminds me of bacon, even though of course I don’t eat bacon. Only it is a million times better than bacon in every way. It tastes better and of course it is simply vastly better for you.
[UPDATE – Note that when I write that I like tempeh crisp I do not mean almost burnt, cooked to the point that its basically nothing. It is good when it is well-cooked but even then it still has some chewiness to it. The same with tofu. It can be well-cooked but if it were actually crisp all the way through like a cracker that would be too much.]
Not sure which one to go with – tofu or tempeh – I just decided to use both.
The basic idea of miang kum is this:
1. Stir fry something really good like crumbled tempeh or thinly-sliced tofu. Try to make it crispy.
Add in some cool stuff like: coarsely-grated ginger, chopped peanut, garlic, scallion, bean sprouts, hot pepper, and toasted coconut slices. Of course other things can be added. I put some kale in for good measure and some mixed organic bean sprouts.
Obviously think about when to add each thing. I actually never put ginger in a stir-fry until today and I’m not sure if it should have gone in much later or not, whether the flavor disappears quickly with heat or not, or whether I should not have even put it in the stir fry. Hot pepper (the one I used was searing hot, sort of a cross between a jalapeno and a thai peppper) I like to let cook a while to remove most of the heat.
Normally I would barely cook ingredients like scallion and even kale but because this is miang kum and I was going for the crispy thing, I decided to put them in earlier and let them cook a bit more. [UPDATE – Next time I will probably just opt for having them less-cooked and more fresh as usual.]
2. The second part of this is the sauce. Since this is vegan and not using fish sauce, I opted to use rice vinegar and tamari sauce. I was out of agave so instead used a bit of honey mixed with it. Then – this is an amazing twist and something I’ve never done before until today – slice in some lime, including the peel. The lime just makes this mind-blowing! I was not sure whether to add the ginger (and possibly garlic as well) in here or in the stir-fry. This will be a topic of further investigation and experimentation.
3. The final part is the wrap. Lay out some leaves of butter lettuce and then use a spoon to coat the top with some sauce.
Finally, put the stir-fry onto the leaves. I found that a ceramic soup spoon worked perfectly for this purpose. After dispensing the stir-fry onto the leaf you can even add a bit more sauce on top.
To eat, pick up the leaf without spilling the contents, then wrap the ends together and eat. This really is miang kum, or miang kham, which means “eating many things in one bite” [interesting because the Japanese word for “chew” or “bite” is kame, wondering if its related to Thai kham/kum.]
Finally, if you have any stir-fry left over, it is excellent to eat by itself or of course you could have it with a slice of Schwarzbrot or a bowl of rice.
Making miang kum is opening up whole new realms. There are so many possibilities to explore.
I just finished my very first self-made miang kum meal and I’m so happy I feel like kickboxing!
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