This spicy side will steal the show
A southern Thai salad that’s ready in 15 minutes
Heya, and welcome back to Cool Beans! This week, when we sat down with Philadelphia restaurateur Nok Suntaranon to gab about the meatless dish she makes On Repeat, she walked us through the prep for something that’s always on the menu at her southern Thai spot Kalaya: yum hed ruam, a seared mushroom salad.
“Thai food isn’t really big on vegan or vegetarian,” says Suntaranon, who won the James Beard Award for Best Chef: Mid-Atlantic in 2023, “but this is a dish I always make at home and I thought, ‘I can do this in my restaurant.’” The recipe’s in her cookbook, Kalaya’s Southern Thai Kitchen, which is out on Nov. 5.
Why I love it
“First, I love mushrooms, and second, I love to buy mushrooms. And I love to make yum—yum means salad. It’s super easy, it’s light, you can whip it up in a matter of five minutes if you have all the ingredients. All the vegetables and herbs, you just chop them together and sprinkle them on top and you’re good to go. It’s fast, and it’s healthy.”
What I’ve changed
“I started with king oyster mushrooms when I opened Kalaya in 2009. And then I was introduced to the local mushroom growers, and I want to support them, so I gave them the freedom to put whatever they wanted in the box. So I changed from king oyster mushrooms to assorted mushrooms, and it’s gorgeous.
Check out the full recipe for Nok’s spicy mushroom salad.
“At Kalaya right now we also mix mushrooms and tofu to make [the dish] more substantial, and it’s quite filling. We fry the tofu a little bit, or you can just sear it in the pan with a tiny bit of oil on both sides. If you add a bit more water to the skillet, make it almost brothlike, this will be clear mushroom soup, almost like tom yum. And you can have that with rice. It’s delicious.”
What else I’m into right now
Imperfect produce. In the south of Thailand when I was young, all the fruit and vegetables were organic, so they were imperfect. They might be a little brownish, but we could trim them. Those imperfect fruits and vegetables can be a cheaper price, and if you don’t buy them, they could be landfill. But if you cook them that day, they can be perfect, and it’s delicious. If you see mushrooms that are not perfect, turn them into mushroom stock, and you can do so much with that stuff.
Smaller portions. The food we serve in the restaurant is for you to consume that day, not for you to take home and travel with you in a plastic container and leave in your fridge and then get thrown away in the next 10 days. Americans have the habit of taking everything home. There’s nothing I can do about it, because I can’t swim against the stream here. This is why the food we serve is in smaller portions.
Zero-waste almond milk. At home I make almond milk, and after I squeeze the milk out I use the leftover solids. I dry them, and then I have almond meal. And I’m going to use that to make gluten-free cookies with one banana and one egg. That’s my snack. It’s all about being creative and giving yourself a little more time to stop and pause and see what you can do.