Though Miang Kham (เมี่ยงคำ), the so-called one-bite salad with sweet and sticky sauce (there’s a recipe for it in Simple Thai Food), has rightfully hogged all the limelight all these years, it should be noted that it is by no means the only dish in the family of miang (เมี่ยง) wherein various tiny little things are anointed with a sauce and wrapped up in a leaf to form one perfect bite. Just as anything can be turned into a yam (ยำ), a spicy salad with fish sauce and lime juice as the main seasoning, pretty much anything can be turned into a miang.
Let your imagination take flight. Think of what makes a good combination of flavors and textures and go for it. Your job as a miang maker is to create a place where the different ingredients not only bring out the best in one another but also, together with the sauce, form a unified whole that is so good you don’t want to remove any components or add more to the mix. When you’ve got that situation going on, you know you have a good miang — something to set in front of a group of friends, inviting them to put together with their hands one bite after another of a composed salad.
This is one of the miangs I like. I hope you do too. Continue Reading →
