After eating at Pok Pok, Andy Ricker’s highly acclaimed PDX establishment, I was inspired to make Yam Khai Dao myself. Yam Khai Dao is a Thai Fried Egg Salad. I thought Wikipedia explained it best -
Yam (Thai pronunciation: [jām]) literally means “mix” but in Thai cuisine it normally refers to a type of salad-like dishes… Yam can be made with a wide variety of ingredients as its main ingredient and nearly any type of protein, vegetable, fruit, herb, spice, and noodle, or combinations… Besides the main ingredient, the basic recipe of a yam will nearly always contain sliced fresh shallots or onions, fish sauce, lime juice, sugar, and fresh or dried chillies. When herbs are used, it is usually Chinese celery, sometimes in combination with other fresh herbs such as spearmint, coriander leaves, spring onions and culantro. Very often, sliced tomatoes are also added in…
I referenced a recipe, courtesy of Food.com (click here), and found it extremely easy to make! Unfortunately, I’m not great at handling spiciness so I omitted the chilies. Overall, it tasted very similar to what I had at the restaurant, and it took only 10-15 minutes to prepare.
The recipe will provide more detailed instructions, but basically just like what Wikipedia said…
- Mix fish sauce, sugar, garlic, coriander (aka cilantro), and fresh lime juice until sugar dissolves. Expect the dressing to be sweet & savory.
- Fry (or deep fry) eggs. You can plate them chopped or whole (as I have pictured above).
- Add tomatoes, greens, onions, or other ingredients to your “yam.”
- Mix ingredients together and enjoy!
Who knew making Thai food could be that simple? :)