(upbeat music)
Sawaddee ka.
- Welcome to Hot Thai Kitchen.
I am so excited today.
I am finally introducing you to one
of our national junk food,
and that is Mama!.
Yes, Mama is our like national brand of instant noodles.
I am making Mama Noodle Salad,
or Yum Mama,
which is actually a very common dish that Thai people make,
you know cause most Thai homes will have
Mama around in the house,
and so one thing that's very easy,
and very delicious to do
is to turn it into a salad.
So let's get started.
So here are the Mama noodles.
There are many, many different flavors.
There are more flavors in Thailand.
If you are ever there check out
the instant noodle aisle, it's super fun.
Now you can use different flavors for this recipe,
cause we're not using the actual seasoning packet,
but there are some you can't use, okay?
So I'm gonna to point out that, this one for example
is actually a different kind of noodle.
This one is rice noodles.
The one that we want is the classic noodles
which are made from wheat, okay?
This is the pork flavor.
It's a super classic.
It's the one I'm gonna to use, okay?
The noodles inside should look like that,
and it's the one I'm gonna use,
because it also comes
with this garlic oil inside,
which I'm actually gonna include in my dressing.
This classic tom yum flavor, this is really popular.
It's the one I usually have in my pantry.
It doesn't come with garlic oil,
but it does come with a little packet of chili paste,
which you can put in the salad dressing
if you want for something different.
One note, sometimes there's a jumbo pack.
Usually the flavor of the jumbo pack is creamy tom yum.
So it's tom yum soup,
but this is one it's gotta a creamy broth.
Sometimes it will be bigger than average,
so make sure you look to make sure
that the noodles are 55 grams.
Just for the sake for this recipe,
you can still use it,
but don't use two full packs,
like I'm about to use in this recipe.
Okay, so there is my
little Mama 101.
The noodles, by the way, you can eat dry,
and kids love eating these,
cause they are fully cooked,
they are deep fried and crispy.
So as a kid I would just break it up,
put some seasoning in there,
shake it up and just eat it like chips.
So good!
Okay, I'm gonna put these away,
and let's make the dressing.
So the dressing as always will be
made in my little mortar and pestle here.
I'm gonna start out with a Thai chili.
You can make this as spicy or as not spicy as you want.
I'm also going to add some cilantro stems.
I save the leaves so you can
toss them into the salad later.
But I love just mashing the stem into the dressing.
I'm gonna pound that into a paste.
Okay, so it is now mostly a paste,
and now I'm gonna add some palm sugar.
You can use just regular white sugar
for this for sure if you don't have it.
I'm gonna pound that until it's dissolved.
Oh, that looks good.
And now of course, it's a Thai salad,
we're gonna add some fish sauce, yay!
But I am adding just a little touch
of soy sauce into this as well,
which is not usual for a Thai salad,
but I do find that it really works
with the flavor of the Mama noodles.
You can do all fish sauce if you like.
And lime juice,
lots and lots of lime juice.
You will notice that I'm using less salty in this dressing.
That's because the noodles themselves
have some saltiness in them.
So if I made just a regular yum dressing,
I find that it's a little too salty.
I'm just gonna throw in some thinly sliced lemongrass.
That will just give it some extra texture,
extra aroma, extra flavor.
And you know what,
everybody I feel like has their own version of Mama Salad,
so this is just my version.
Please feel free to do with it whatever you want.
And last but not least,
I already added some fresh chilies,
but I'm also gonna add some dry chilies,
which always comes with the Mama seasoning packet.
It's a small one, and I think every flavor has it,
cause it's you know for some people
who want things a little more spicy.
And I just find that,
cause dry chilies and fresh chilies
have different flavors, right?
I just find that both flavors
really add extra character to this.
Now how much should I add?
Let's add both.
And that's it, yay.
Alright, so in my mixing bowl here,
I have got some onions and tomatoes.
Now I am using sweet Vidalia onions
which I love in the salad,
but you can do whatever kind of onions you like.
Set his aside for now.
I wanna talk about Mama.
I'm going to blanche these,
and these only take two minutes to cook,
but I wanna break it first into about four pieces.
Otherwise I find the noodles too long.
And I like to do that in the bag
so it doesn't fall out all over the place.
Yeah, like chunks like this
I find makes for
a nice
salad.
So I'm just gonna add that to my boiling water here.
Okay, now at the bottom of every bag,
there are these broken
pieces of
Mama here.
I like to save these so I can sprinkle them on top,
so I get, you know crunchy bits on top of my salad.
But it's up to you.
If you want you can just eat them right here,
cause they are good.
That's done, I'm just gonnna fish it out.
You definitely don't want to overcook these
cause they can become mushy pretty quickly.
And now there's a reason why I am fishing them out
rather than pouring them into the strainer,
because I want to save that water to blanche my proteins.
So while that water is still hot,
I'm gonna add some shrimp.
You can do any kind of protein you like,
but I feel like shrimp is the more common one.
And I'm not pouring them down,
because I don't want splashing hot water.
And these will take literally 30 seconds.
That is it for the shrimp.
I'm gonna fish them out now.
I have one more protein to cook.
I'm gonna turn this off,
and get rid of this water.
It's very common for us to add ground pork to this salad.
Naturally mixes in with the noodles really well,
so I would recommend having some sort
of ground meat in there.
You don't need pork,
you can have chicken.
Even ground beef might be good.
But let me just drain this water.
Alright, remember that garlic oil from the Mama packet?
Yep, I'm gonna use that to saute the pork.
Isn't that genius?
That's totally genius.
Oooooooooooo, delicious.
And break up that pork,
and you just wanna cook it until it's done.
So as you can see the pork
has released quite a bit of liquid in there,
and I want to keep that liquid in the salad,
cause that's really flavorful stuff.
But each time you make it you're not gonna have
the exact same amount of liquid which means
you will have to taste,
and be prepared to adjust for seasoning.
Alright and now all we have to do
is put everything together.
So while the pork is still warm,
I'm gonna pour that right over the vegetables.
And it will help sort of wilt the onions,
and warm and soften the tomatoes a little bit.
The noodles and the shrimp, boom.
Now, since the noodles have been sitting awhile,
it's gonna look a little clumpy.
Don't worry, that's when you pour
your dressing right over the noodles,
and all that liquid will help soften release a little bit.
There we go, mmmmmmmmmmm!
Now, oh that looks good.
Mmmm, that smells good too.
It looks like it needs some greenery, doe is not?
A-ha, so I'm going to add
some
Chinese
celery.
So this is Chinese celery.
I've got the leaves picked,
and I've chopped the stems,
and if you have never worked with Chinese celery before,
this is what it looks like.
So it's basically like a skinny and leafy
version of a regular celery, basically.
And if you can't find this,
you can just use regular celery,
and choose the inside stocks.
So get the leaves,
get the inside stocks,
and chop it up.
It will work just as well.
So in that
goes.
And I'm also gonna throw in
just a handful of the cilantro leaves.
We used the stem in the dressing, remember?
So now,
everything gets mixed.
And these noodles really absorb dressing really well,
which will make them super flavorful.
You know, this is like a huge amount of Mama Salad.
But I find that one pack is too small.
And two pack is pretty big,
but, you know, you can never have too much Mama Salad.
Oooh, look at how beautiful that is.
And only one thing left to do,
and that is to eat.
Yes.
That's right.
Oh, you know what I forgot,
is I forgot a little sprinkle of the dry Mama.
There we go, we'll just do it for this bite.
(upbeat music)
(laughs)
Mmmmmmmm.
Oh so,
so nostalgic.
It's really refreshing.
Just the right amount of acidity,
and the noodles, Mama noodles in salad
are the funnest noodles ever,
cause they are kind of like, they're curly and wiggly
and they kind of dance around in your mouth,
and they really absorb all of that dressing.
The celery gives it that touch of floral quality.
Tomatoes are sweet and juicy.
The pork's a little chewy,
and that dry bits of Mama noodles,
it's like flavor and texture party in there.
So easy and really, really a great dish in the summer.
Again, it's served room temperature,
even cold is fine.
And I still taste that garlic oil.
So, the recipe as always will be on
HotThaiKitchen.com.
When you make it, I definitely want to see it,
so send me a photo on
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and I will see you next time for you next delicious
Thai meal.
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