Kao Poon Nam Gai – ເຂົ້າປຸ້ນນໍ້າໄກ່

Happy New Year Everyone! For my first post of the year and since it’s cold outside, I thought I’d share with you a popular Lao noodle soup called Kao Poon Nam Gai.

What is Kao Poon Nam Gai?

It’s essentially a red curry noodle soup with chicken and bamboo. “Kao Poon” means rice noodles, “Nam Gai” means chicken broth.

Many Lao people also like to include pork blood cubes and chicken feet. If it’s not your thing, you can skip these optional ingredients and just serve it with rice vermicelli noodles and lots of colorful vegetables.

This recipe has many steps, but it’s best when made from scratch and it’ll be worth it – I promise. You’ll love it!

Making the chicken broth

First you have to make the chicken broth. To make this we use a stewing hen. Stewing hens are leaner and very flavorful. They need to be boiled on low heat for a couple hours for the meat to be tender. You can find them in the freezer section and they are quite inexpensive. If you can’t find stewing hen, you can substitute with a free range chicken.

Fill a medium pot with water enough to cover the chicken. Make sure you smash the white ends of the lemongrass to release the flavors. Then add the lemon grass, galangal, kaffir leaves, cilantro root and 2T of salt to the pot. At this point you can also add chicken feet if you wish to include it. Make sure the nails have been chopped off and the feet have been thoroughly rinsed. Bring it to a boil and let it simmer for a couple hours or until the chicken is tender and falls off the bone. The chicken feet will become tender much sooner than the stewing hen and should be removed from the pot and set aside.

Making the chili paste

While the broth is simmering, soak a bag of New Mexico Chile pods in water. These are big dried poblano peppers. Soak them for about 20 minutes until they soften. Once they’ve softened, drain the water and give it a rough chop. Put it in a food processor along with the peeled shallots and garlic. Process the ingredients until it becomes a fine paste. You won’t be using all the chili paste for this soup recipe. But it can be stored in the fridge and can be used for other recipes such as stir fry.

Deboning the chicken

Remove the chicken from the pot once it is tender. Deboning the chicken is easy as it should fall of the bone. Take all the meat off and discard the bones. Give the chicken meat a rough chop. Using a mortar and pestle, smash the chicken with 2T of shrimp paste until well combined.

Completing the soup

In a fry pan, saute about 1C of the chili paste and 1 tsp of paprika until fragrant. Then add the chicken mixture and stir fry until well combined.

Add 1 can of coconut milk to the chicken broth and mix until well combined. Then add the chicken mixture. Since we already added salt and shrimp paste, we balance the flavors by adding 1T of sugar.

Now we can return the chicken feet to the soup and add the sliced bamboo. The bamboo should be boiled separately first to remove any bitterness taste. If you want to add blood cubes, you should also boil them separately first.

The soup should have a spicy coconut chicken flavor. If you want to make it spicier then you can add more of the reserved chili paste and/or whole Thai Chilies.

Serving Kao Poon

There are many vegetables that go in kao poon. Cabbage, bean sprouts, carrots, long bean, ong choy and banana blossom. They should be washed and chopped as shown.

The rice vermicelli is boiled until soft. Then drain the hot water. Put the noodles in a big mixing bowl and add cold water. Take a pinch of the noodles and wrap them around your finger until it forms a loop. Then gently squeeze the water out and place it neatly on a serving tray. Not only is this a beautiful presentation, but it makes it easy for people to grab the noodles.

Place however many noodle loops in a bowl, top it with the vegetables then add the soup. Garnish with mint and serve. I hope you really enjoy Kao Poon Nam Gai!

Want more noodle soup recipes? Try Kao Piak Sen