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Anglo-Thai Chef’s Simple Recipe for Spicy Fried-Egg Salad at Home

A recipe for yum khai dao, fried-egg salad with celery leaf and sweet-spicy-tart dressing, by Chef John Chantarasak.

Anglo-Thai Chef’s Simple Recipe for Spicy Fried-Egg Salad at Home
Homemade Yum khai dao by the author. (Photographer: Richard Vines/Bloomberg)

Chef John Chantarasak grew up in the U.K. with his British mother and Thai father. He well remembers annual childhood visits to the family home in Bangkok, where he came to love spicy dishes cooked with the freshest of ingredients.

He later moved to Thailand and studied cooking at Le Cordon Bleu Dusit Culinary School before working in restaurants, including the fine-dining Thai establishment Nahm under chef David Thompson. John was sous chef at Som Saa in London before creating AngloThai — a roving pop-up restaurant — with his wife Desiree. (He’s currently in residency at Newcomer Wines in Dalston.)

Anglo-Thai Chef’s Simple Recipe for Spicy Fried-Egg Salad at Home

For Bloomberg, he has supplied a recipe for yum khai dao,  fried-egg salad with celery leaf and sweet-spicy-tart dressing.

“The Thais love eggs and this dish is very popular at homes in Thailand, though you don’t see it so much on restaurant menus,” he says. “This is a loose rendition of one we eat in our family. I think it’s appropriate for the U.K, where you often get big salads, but this is light and fresh and herbal, with sweet, spicy, salty and sour flavors.” The recipe serves two as a side dish and one as a meal.

I found the recipe very straightforward and I loved the taste and the contrasting textures. If I were to attempt it again, I would probably reduce the sugar a bit, and I struggled with the heat from just two bird’s eye chilies, rather than the three John favors. 

Anglo-Thai Chef’s Simple Recipe for Spicy Fried-Egg Salad at Home

Ingredients:

For the dressing:

2 tbsp palm sugar

1 tbsp water

3 tbsp fish sauce

3 tbsp lime juice (half a lime)

1 plump garlic clove – peeled and thinly sliced

3 bird’s eye chilies, thinly sliced. (Add less or more depending on how spicy you like it.)

For the dish:

2 large free range hen’s eggs

Vegetable oil for frying

Half a small white onion, thinly sliced with the grain of the onion

1 tomato, chopped roughly into eight

Small handful of coriander, leaf and stem roughly chopped 

Small handful of Asian celery, stem thinly sliced and leaves picked. (If you can’t find Asian celery then use the inner sticks of a celery head with the leaves.)

Wild garlic flowers (optional, to garnish)

Preparation:

  1. Make the dressing by combining the palm sugar, water, fish sauce and lime juice. Mix everything well so that the palm sugar is completely dissolved. Add the sliced garlic and chilies. It should taste sweet, spicy and tart.
  2. Crack the eggs into ramekins ensuring not to break the yolks. Heat 2 centimeters (0.8 inch) of vegetable oil in a pan. Once the oil starts to smoke, gently slide an egg into the hot oil. The egg will immediately start to spit, crackle and bubble so be careful. The whites will puff and develop large transparent bubbles; the bottom and edges will get brown and crispy. Fry for about 1 minute. Flip the egg and allow to cook for a few seconds before transferring to absorbent paper to drain any excess oil. Repeat the process with the second egg.
  3. Add the sliced onion, tomato, celery and coriander to a mixing bowl with the dressing. Cut the eggs into quarters, trying to avoid cutting through the runny yolks. Add to the mixing bowl and gently toss everything together.
  4. Transfer to a plate and pour the dressing over. Serve with steamed jasmine rice.

 Richard Vines is Chief Food Critic at Bloomberg. Follow him on Twitter @richardvines and Instagram @richard.vines.

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