Deep fried text
Look, I don’t know what to tell you. It’s so easy. It’s rice and eggs and some oil. Khai jiaow is the recipe that you learn to make in Thailand when you’re like 10. Nothing you’re about to do here is rocket surgery. If you’re afraid of heating oil beyond boiling, consider getting over your problems, instead.
Get a jug of butcher boy oil at the grocery store, throw it in a wok, heat it to 375º, pour 4-6 scrambled eggs in, wait 3 minutes, flip, wait 2 minutes, out, drain on a paper towel, serve on a bed of rice. Here is an actual Thai person telling you to do the exact same thing, only they add nam pla, which fine.
You can add salt to the scrambled eggs 30 minutes before you deep fry the omelette, in order to bind up the proteins and increase the umami.
You can add scallions, grated ginger, grated garlic, lemongrass, and/or ground pork to the scramble, but try not to go too nuts with it.
If you’re doing multiple batches, keep in mind that the eggs cool down the oil, and you will need to bring the oil back up to temp every time. You should reuse the oil. It keeps in the fridge effectively forever.
You can (and should) also serve all of this with nam pla prik, which is effectively the national condiment of Thailand. It’s very simple, but requires some thoughtful sourcing & good timing. Get a disc of palm sugar, 8oz of bird’s eye chiles, a head of garlic, nam pla, and eight limes. Juice & strain the limes, add to a cup of nam pla, thin slice the garlic & chiles, and combine everything in a mason jar. Helps with dissolving if you bash the palm sugar a little with a mortar & pestle into some of the nam pla and/or lime juice. Wait two days before you serve, so all of the flavors can combine. Here’s that Thai person again, with a slight variation that omits the palm sugar and adds shallots.
You need bird’s eye chiles for this. They are in season in late August in Chicago for only a couple of weeks. Failing that, they will probably be at H Mart.
When you serve khai jiaow with nam pla prik, the result is hard to describe. It is riotously bright, sweet, savory, funky, oily, spicy. It is, in my opinion, the fastest way to shortcut your way to the feeling that you are actually eating in Thailand. God, you just feel alive. Or use sriracha, who cares.