'Raat Nar Muu' or 'Rad Na'

[BettyK]

I'm a little confused as there are so many bean pastes and sauces. Mai Pham's recipe calls for fermented whole soybeans (aka fermented yellow beans) and David Thompson's calls for yellow bean sauce. Is it the same? Would "Kun Chun Bean Sauce" be appropriate for this dish? Please help me get this straight.

Edited March 27, 2004 by BettyK (log)

[Stupid_American]

My wife, Thai, uses "non-of-the-above" in her rad na.

If you have it, use it; if you like it, !

Most Thai recipes have personal variations.

Edited March 27, 2004 by Stupid_American (log)

[helenas]

Betty, i had the same question until i found this: Kasma's favorite yellow soy bean sauces.

I think she knows a thing or two about thai food.

[BettyK]

Most Thai recipes have personal variations.

Of course, just like any other cuisine.

[BettyK]

Betty, i had the same question until i found this: Kasma's favorite yellow soy bean sauces.

I think she knows a thing or two about thai food.

Thanks, Helenas. Why didn't I think about Kasma earlier.

[BettyK]

I just checked my fridge. I can't believe there was a jar of bean sauce hiding.

Helenas, have you ever used this bean sauce? Was wondering how do you rinse it? Or do you?

[Dejah]

I have YEO's yellow bean sauce. Haven't done much Thai cooking, but I use it for my steamed pork ribs or belly with plums in brine. Have never rinsed the sauce before using. Would that not lose much of the "flavour"?

For my pork dish, I just scoop some sauce and mix it in with the meat. I don't usually add salt as the sauce is salty.

[BettyK]

Scratch that.

I just re-read David Thompson's book. He uses whole beans which have been fermented in brine which makes it rinseable, I think.

Anyway, next time I will use what I have and will not rinse. Should work just fine. Thanks.

Edited March 30, 2004 by BettyK (log)

[ecr]

Stupid_American, that's very interesting. I've been making laad naa for years, using broth, oyster sauce, and fish sauce in the gravy (and tapioca flour for thickening). It's a pretty close match, if I do say so myself, to any laad naa I've had in Thailand.

Last week I tried the yellow bean variation .... it tasted nothing like I've ever had in Thailand. (Didn't like it.) A couple months ago I watched laad naa being made on the street in Bangkok, Chiang Mai and Sukhothai -- no bean paste.

So please ask your wife .... is bean paste used in laad naa in some regions and not others? And what does she use in her laad naa gravy? 'Cause I have yet to encounter it in Thailand.

[bbq4meanytime]

Interesting timing on this thread. I recent bought some yellow bean paste from my thai grocers to try to make raad na (lad na). I don't remember the brand name but I'll check when I get home. Thompson only has one recipe which uses the yellow bean paste (if I recall correctly) which is pork w/ wide noodles. I didn't find a recip for raad na in his book (correct me if I'm wrong). So I searched high and low until I found a recipe for chicken raad na and have been since experimenting with mixed results.

Interestingly, when I bought the yellow bean paste, I had to ask for it using the thai name (phonetically, which I now forget) and I asked the grocer what it was used for and he told me raad na.

Just guessing, I'd say that maybe 2 out of 10 thai restaurants have raad na on the menu around here, but fortunately one around the corner from work has it. I ordered it last week and while the amount of yellow bean paste was small, you could definitely taste and see it in the sauce. Unfortuately, my thai langauage capabilities and my thai grocer's english language capabilities are insufficient for me to determine if yellow bean paste raad na is regional.

Edited March 30, 2004 by bbq4meanytime (log)

[BettyK]

Interesting timing on this thread.  I recent bought some yellow bean paste from my thai grocers to try to make raad na (lad na).  I don't remember the brand name but I'll check when I get home.  Thompson only has one recipe which uses the yellow bean paste (if I recall correctly) which is pork w/ wide noodles.  I didn't find a recip for raad na in his book (correct me if I'm wrong).  So I searched high and low until I found a recipe for chicken raad na and have been since experimenting with mixed results. 

I could be wrong, but isn't David Thompson's 'Raat Nar Muu' or 'Rice Noodles and Pork with Thickened Gravy' (P. 566) same as Raad Na? I've never been to Thailand and I've never had Raad Na in a restaurant so I don't know too much about it. I'm still learning.

I also found that David's recipe is very similar to Mai Pham's.

[bbq4meanytime]

Interesting timing on this thread.  I recent bought some yellow bean paste from my thai grocers to try to make raad na (lad na).  I don't remember the brand name but I'll check when I get home.  Thompson only has one recipe which uses the yellow bean paste (if I recall correctly) which is pork w/ wide noodles.  I didn't find a recip for raad na in his book (correct me if I'm wrong).  So I searched high and low until I found a recipe for chicken raad na and have been since experimenting with mixed results. 

I could be wrong, but isn't David Thompson's 'Raat Nar Muu' or 'Rice Noodles and Pork with Thickened Gravy' (P. 566) same as Raad Na? I've never been to Thailand and I've never had Raad Na in a restaurant so I don't know too much about it. I'm still learning.

I also found that David's recipe is very similar to Mai Pham's.

Betty, I think you're right. Perhaps I'm getting the names confused. I have always seen the chichen w/wide noodles, broccoli and fermented bean sauce gravy dish called "Lad Na" on menus and in recipes. Since differing phonetic spellings are commonplace when it comes to Thai food and ingredients, I assumed "Raad Na" is the same as "Lad Na". Thompson calls his dish "Raat Nar Muu", which to me doesn't come close to Lad Na or Raad Na, so I assumed they were different. However Thompson's recipe (if you substitute chicken for the pork), is substantially similar to the Lad Na recipes I have seen.

Anyways, the Thai bean paste I bought has a name in Thai characters that I can't duplicate. But in English it says "fermented bean paste" underneath the name and is exported by P. Pra Teep Thong in Thailand. The "paste" is yellow-brown and consists of whole soy beans spliut in half in a thick sauce.

One of my Thai grocers sells the fresh wide rice noodles so those are the noodles I've been using in my attempts at making this dish.

By the way, I too was confused by Thompson's suggestion that the bean paste be "rinsed". How did you read that? If you rinse the beans (and wash away the thick gravy), it would seem that you would lose a lot of the flavor.

Edited March 31, 2004 by bbq4meanytime (log)

[mamster]

I might be able to help out here a little. Let's see if eGullet can reproduce Thai characters...

The yellow soybean paste is เฅ้าเจี้ยว (dtow jiaw, both falling tone). Actually there's light (yellow) and dark (brownish), but the yellow is more common and used in ราดหน้า (raad naa, also both falling tone). I'm not sure what Thompson means by rinsing the soybean paste.

In Bangkok I've seen bean paste used sometimes and not other times. It's not an essential part of the recipe; the only essentials are stock and cornstarch. That said, I like the bean paste.

Oh, and people in central Thailand tend to say "R" as "L", which is why you sometimes see "laad naa" and something "raad naa" (or any number of other romanizations). It's spelled with the Thai letter "R" (ร), but language change marches on.

[pim]

bbq4meanytime, thanks for the PM to draw me to this thread.

I'm not sure how much I have to add beyond what Mamster has already said. He even produced the Thai characters, very impressive, even I didn’t know how to do that!

Tow Jiew, yellow bean paste, and Tow Jiew Dum or Tow Si, black bean paste can both be used for Raad Na. Mamster was right in that neither is absolutely required, though it’s quite common to add them.

I think the reason why ecr has never seen the Tow Jiew or Tow Si added to Raad Na was because most specialty Raad Na vendor would very likely have the sauce pre-made earlier in the day. It is then portioned out to make one individual serving at a time, hence no addition of Tow Jiew while making individual portions. I’m sure most of them add either Tow Jiew or Tow Si to the sauce, to a varying degree depending on their preference. I also know that some vendors actually pound the Tow Jiew into a fine paste before adding to the sauce, to add the taste without leaving a few whole beans which would taste too strong in a bite.

If one goes to an all purpose street vendor (sometimes called Aharn Tam Sang), then the sauce would be made for each order. This is not necessarily better though. I much prefer going to a shop specialized in Raad Na.

Although Raad Na here in the US are almost always made with flat rice noodle (Sen Yai), in Thailand one can order a variety of noodles, including angel hair rice noodle (Sen Mi), crispy fried egg noodle (Mi Grob), or regular egg noodle (Bah-mi).

My favorite is Sen Mi.

Edited March 31, 2004 by pim (log)

[mamster]

I'm glad those characters came through, pim (see, the class paid off), and thanks for the point about premade sauce.

[pim]

Just thought of another thing.

I think Thompson referred to Tao Si when talking about bean paste. Tao Si, unlike Tao Jiew which contains beans in broken and semi-paste form, contains whole fermented black beans that could be rinsed before use.

Mamster, the class is paying off, evidently. But whatever you do, don’t email me in Thai. I would be so ashamed I couldn’t reply back in my own language!

Pim

(who lost her ability to navigate a Thai keyboard looooong ago)

[Stupid_American]

OOPS! I just found out that my wife does toss in a spoonful or 2 of her favorite, "Healthy Boy Brand, Soy Bean Paste, Formula #1"

[bbq4meanytime]

Mamster and Pim, thanks for the input. I vote for raise for each of you.

[pim]

Mamster and Pim, thanks for the input.  I vote for raise for each of you. 

a raise?

You mean, HE got PAID?!?

news to me

[mamster]

Don't worry, pim. First of all, I can pretty much write "hello," "goodbye," "how old are you?" "where is your house?" and the names of a bunch of different foods. And my email client won't accept the Thai alphabet anyway. Frankly, I'm amazed it worked here.

[BettyK]

Thank you all for your help.

I think I definitely need to go to Thailand to taste the real thing.

Anyone wants to organize a tour? I'm serious.

[Stupid_American]

I spend a couple months in Bangkok, each year.

Unfortunately, I'm not due again until December ~ February.

If you head over, I will be glad to offer my suggestions, including a shop in Yannawa, a district of Bangkok, that prepares only rad na and pad see ewe.