welcome to hot thai kitchen so today i'm going to make sweet and sour crispy noodles which entire
called mee grob so me are thin rice vermicelli which is these and grub as the way it sounds means
crispy so these are sort of like savory asian rice crispy squares they're super popular snacks
especially amongst tourists in thailand and they are not hard to make however if you don't know
what you're doing there could be a lot of problems with it either noodles don't puff up properly or
they're like they get soggy they don't stay crispy or they're too sweet so today i'm gonna share with
you all the secrets that you need to know and if you follow them i guarantee you you will have
crispy delicious noodles that stay crispy for weeks you can package them sell them as a side
hustle that is how good they're going to be all right let's get started so the me that we are
using are these thin rice vermicelli which you can get at just about any asian grocery store what you
want to do is separate them into sort of smaller bundles because when we fry these they will puff
up a lot so you only want to fry a small bundle at a time and this is a little long so i just cut
and that's it so this is about a good amount to fry in like a pot this size
secret number one you need to weigh your ingredients so this is not
a recipe where you can just willingly eyeball things because the ratio between the noodles
and the sauce is everything too little and it's bland too much and it's too sweet and sticky so
you can tinker with it afterwards but i would follow the recipe to a tea the first
time secret number two for fluffy light not oily noodles your oil has to be screaming hot
at least 430 degrees fahrenheit between 430 and 450 works actually i'm going to show you
what the noodles look like when the oil is not hot enough so even if you don't have a thermometer you
can gauge by the behavior of the noodles my oil is at 350 now this is a temperature at which you fry
most things it's taking its time it's not puffing right away which is not what we want so i'm going
to remove my sacrifice noodles and it's actually browning without puffing at all so we're now at
390 400. it's getting there but it's not if it doesn't make you jump it's not hot enough 420
oh so close so close you can see it's trying so hard 4 30
it's pretty it's okay but it's i think 450
is kind of where you need to go but you can see the volume is starting to increase now 450
like you can see how much more volume that has right so here they all are all the different
noodles for at a different temperature and the interesting part is the lower the temperature the
browner the noodles i'm not really sure why that happened
but it does and as you get higher and higher you get this fluffy white light and the
volume increases so much more and that's what you want and when you break it off
it's just super light whereas if you take one fried at lower temperature it's harder
like you can almost hear it right it's not it's not fluffy even this one is is not fluffy
430 is okay this was on his fried at 4 30 it's not as white but fluffiness wise it's okay but really
the best is 450. all right let's fry the rest of them for this part i recommend ventilating your
room best you can i've turned the fan on and then please enjoy the asmr effect of frying noodles
hmm
wow i'm just checking my final oil temperature and it seems i went up to 475 which is still good you
can see the noodles were really puffing up at the end but the oil is starting to smoke now so
for quality of the oil's sake keep it around 450 is probably your best bet okay now that all that
excitement is over let's move on to the part where it's less likely to result in a disaster
i'm going to make the sauce is a sweet and sour sauce that has a lot of the same ingredients as
pad thai actually so i like to think of these as crispy pad thai so gonna start out with some
oil and some shallots and i'm gonna cook the shallots until they're nice soft and caramelized
so keep the heat relatively low for this and choice of cookware i want to use something that's
big because we want the sauce to evaporate and so you want that to happen sooner rather than later
and also i'm using a non-reactive wok so no carbon steel no cast iron because the sauce is acidic
and so you that is going to eat away at your metal starting to smell good the smell of fried shallots
just going to put these a little bit further so that they're a little bit more caramelized
but not burnt more caramelized more caramelized living on the edge here okay that's all i have the
patience for it's good enough next an egg it might be a surprising choice to add an egg oh no shell
but the eggs are kind of just like gonna get candied in the sweet sauce not even be
visible but they do add almost substance some protein and of course a little bit of flavor as
well you don't have to add it i've seen lots of recipes that don't add the egg in the sauce but
i do think they add a little something something and now super easy we're going to add all of the
seasoning which includes palm sugar lots and lots of palm sugar because this is a sweet and sour so
that's the sweet the sour is tamarind you want to know how to make tamarind paste yourself i
do have a video for that i will link to fish sauce for salty now i'm going to add some thai sriracha
for a little bit of spiciness and also that iconic orange color if you are making this for
kids and you don't want it spicy at all you can add a little bit uh you can add ketchup instead
or do half and half i'm actually going to do fish sauce and salt just to make it a little bit less
fishy for some people who might want something a little more neutral some lime juice and also
i'm going to add some lime zest now traditionally meat crop uses a type of citrus called somsa
which i've never even seen they're really hard to find even in thailand i don't know what it
smells like but i like the the smell of lime zest just fine you can try different citrus you can
do a combination of lime and lemon you can do a combination of lime and orange people say that it
smells kind of like half lime half orange but i think wine works just fine for me
okay secret number three the last secret you're going to cook this sauce down until it's very
thick but don't eyeball the thickness what you want to do is measure the temperature of the sauce
and it should reach 240 degrees fahrenheit which is a softball stage in the way of candy making and
that's the temperature it needs to reach in order for it to not turn the noodles soggy when you put
the noodles in you can imagine all of the liquid noodles go in now they're just gonna turn soft and
soupy right but if you cook the sugar down so much it becomes really hard and then it's just too hard
and then it becomes a hard candy you don't want that you still want it to be kind of soft but no
absolutely no moisture no water left to soften the noodles okay that's the main secret of this recipe
so keep cooking keep stirring because it will start to burn to the bottom if you stop stirring
we are super close this is what it should look kind of like let's take temperature so never
trust your eyes we're at 225 so a little bit more to go oh and if you see any big chunks of eggs
just break them up because you don't really want big chunks because that'll be really overpowering
when you eat it 2 35 to 36 37 39 40 41 okay we are good just for now i'm going to turn off
the heat so that it doesn't burn on the bottom while i'm not looking and then i'm going to add
all of these noodles in here yes does not look like it's gonna fit but we will crush it down
and now with two spatulas i'm gonna just toss everything together but i'm gonna turn the heat
back on just a very very low just because when it's hot the sauce is softer and it's easier to
get everything mixed and you want to be really vigilant with any clumps of sauce because that
will be overwhelming when you eat it and i swear in the beginning it looks like it will never mix
but have faith much better i thought why is it so much harder because at home i have a
built-in stove and it's not way the heck up here it's like at this level which is way easier okay
this is good here's the cool part once you get to this point you've got a couple of options
you can pack it into a tray and turn them into little snacks which is what we're gonna do here
or you can actually take them and turn them into a proper meal and make essentially a crispy pad
thai which is what i will share with you in the next video so stay tuned for that it's
super easy the hard work is already done but it's it's such a luxurious way to serve these
as well but today let's make some snacks i'm just gonna pack these halfway up because
i really love adding cashews or some sort of nuts to it it really adds some nuttiness that contrast
you know with the all carbs situation that we've got going so i got cashews which i painstakingly
split in half you can also just chop them but they're prettier when they're left whole and then
just for color i'm just gonna do pumpkin seeds and why i didn't just mix it in the wok because
they all fall to the bottom when i do that which i found out the hard way and then i have to rescue
them from the wok and put them back in here so then the rest of this goes on top and then we'll
put more nuts on top see that just brings them to life and you can add really any ingredients
as long as they're shelf stable if you plan on keeping these at room temperature and pack that in
fill the gaps and you want to do this while they're still warm so the sugar
hasn't quite solidified and they'll be much more pliable and now i'm gonna let that set up
and cut them into cubes okay so this has yeah it's room temp ish now i'm gonna just
unstick it from the sides it doesn't really stick but you know
just to be sure and you can cut it in the pan if you want or i'm gonna try to as well bring it out
and flip it back oh no my cashews i think 4x4 is a good size for this sharp knife though because you
don't want to squish these they are not rock solid so they are to some degree squishable
you can hear the crispiness yay look at these i'm gonna taste the edge piece
so i have more pretty ones for photos
you can hear the crispy right and light fluffy not sticky perfect balance of sweet salty and sour
these are better once you've let them sit for a while they're okay to eat right now but if you
let them sit maybe have like overnight half a day at least the flavor will sort of start to
penetrate into the noodles and it'll be more even out a little bit you know how like lasagna tastes
better the next day it's kind of the same idea pro tip when you put it in a container or whatever
there are some common garnishes including fried macro lime leaves and fried chilies if you want
you can eat these these are crispy fries just in the same oil that you fried the noodles but
lower at like 325 350. but if you pack it in the container with the chilies and the lime leaves the
smell will actually slowly infuse into the noodles and after a few days you can taste the lime leaves
and even the smell of the chili in the noodles so the recipe as always will be on hathaikitchen.com
if you make this definitely send me a photo and tag me at hot thai kitchen
everywhere and remember stay tuned for next video i'm going to show you how to turn this
into a luxurious meal and a special thanks to our patreon members who help support
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thank you as always for watching and i will see you next time for your next delicious tiny