In Thailand, Pad-Pak-Boong is something Thai people like to eat at late night. By late night, I don’t mean for dinner but as in some time between 10.00pm-2.00am. Thai people like to eat this dish with some plain rice soup. The saltiness of Pad-Pak-Boong goes well with the plainness of rice soup. Together in your mouth, they are so savory just like butter on bread.
Pak Boong is sometimes refered as “The Blink Blink Eyes Vegetable”. There’s an old saying that if you wanna have beautiful sparkling eyes, eat Pak Boong as it’s well-known for high vitamin-C vegetable.
When I and my friends are out for a night life in Bangkok such as shopping handmade stuff at street night markets, drinking, or seeing discounted late night movies, we always, on the way home, stopping at one of this rice soup place (they always really easy to spot on street with neon lights decorated in green, pink and blue.) and order some rice soup, Pad-Pak-Boong, Chinese sausage spicy salad, Fried eggs with fish sauce (Kaijeow) and etc. The rice soup is light and warm. So after finish eating we all feel nice and warm in our tummy and ready to go back home and jump to bed at 2am in the morning.
This kind of late night rice soup place is also my favorite date spot. What could be more romantic than some cute cheesy teenage flirting with beautiful night lights, tasty food, the light wind against my cheeks, and the sound of Tuk Tuk on the background?
Despite off all the fact that Pad-Pak-Boong is a late night dish, I was really craving for this dish this morning. So I decided to breakaway and cook Pad-Pak-Boong for breakfast! I also eat it with plain steam Thai Jasmin rice.
Pad-Pak-Boong is a very easy and healthy dish that takes about 15 minutes to make.
Ingredients (for 2 serving)
300 g. of morning glory (pak-boong)
1/2 cup ground pork (this one is optional)
5 cloveschopped garlic
2 chopped fresh Thai chillies
3 tbsp of oil (or 1+1/2 tbsp if you use nonstick pan)
2 tbsp of plain water
2 tbsp oyster sauce
a pinch of sugar
2 tsp bean sauce
a pinch of white paper powder (optional)
Directions
1. Wash the morning glory well then chop them into 2 inches long (cut out 3 inches from the bottom part of the stem and toss away).
2. Mince the garlic and the chillies.
3. Measure out the all the seasoning and mix it in one cup.
4. Turn the stove on medium low heat, add oil ( I use Olive oil).
5. Wait until the oil is warm, add the chopped garlic & chillies (you should hear some sort of Shh sound at this step. It’s my lucky charm sound for deliciousness). Saute’ until fragrance (about 1-2 mins).
6. Add the ground pork, turn the heat up to medium. Saute’ the pork with garlic and chillies together, add some plain water. Saute’ until they all mixed well together and the pork cooked.
7. Turn your burner on high heat, add the morning glory, the seasoning sauce you have mixed and saute’ them all together. Be quick in this step!
8. Turn your burner off, put the Pad-Pak-Boong on a plate, add some white pepper powder on the top, serve immediately.
Notes*
1. Once you add the morning glory to the pan, you have to be quick. Saute’ them all together quickly and turn off the stove immediately as morning glory is cooked really fast.
2. Don’t worry if 300 g. of morning glory seems too much for 2 people. The morning glory will reduce its size to half when cooked.
3. After rinsing the morning glory, drain it to get rid of unwanted water.
Mini Thai Language Session
Pad (ผัด) = Saute’
Pak Boong (ผักบุ้ง) = Morning Glory
A more polite word for Pak Boong = Pak Tod Yod (No one really uses this word LOL)
Isn’t it strange how some food tasted extra good at specific time of a day? Do you have any specific dish you like to eat at specific time of a day? If yes, what is it and why?
