Instructions: If ever there was a subject close to my heart (well, my stomach is close to my heart - especially when I overeat), it is noodle soups.

I guess that I eat a noodle soup or stir fried noodle dish about 8 times a week, and the repeat cycle is about 3 months. However, they have a nasty tendency to read rather repetitively: the techniques and basic principles involved come down to 4 or 5 "signature" dishes, of which this is one.

When a soup is described as a "yam", it means that everything is just tossed into the stock as it simmers. This soup is also sometimes called Kaeng Jued Wunsen (Kaeng Jued implies a rather bland soup -

This can be made with a variety of ingredients, but the most interesting are probably pork (as here), beef, chicken, shrimp, meat balls, fish balls, shrimp balls, or "monkey balls" (a mixed meat ball not actually made from monkey meat!), or one of the various Thai sausages, as well as vegetarian options (for a quick veggie variation try marinating some tofu in dark sweet soy sauce for about 3 hours and then using that instead of the pork).

Maggi sauce is a dark (nearly black) sauce made by the Maggi corporation, and widely available...

Method: Mix the marinade ingredients, mix with the ground pork, and make the pork into small meat balls, then set aside and leave to marinate for 3 or 4 hours.

Soak and drain the noodles.

Bring the stock to a boil and add all the ingredients except the noodles, and continue to boil until the meatballs are cooked through, when they will float.

Remove from the heat, pour into a serving bowl and add the noodles

(note the immersion in the near boiling soup is enough to cook the noodles).

Serve with the usual Thai table condiments (nam pla prik [chilies in fish sauce], prik dong [chilies in vinegar], sugar, prik phom [ground chilies], and ground peanuts. Colonel Ian F. Khuntilanont-Philpott

If you would like to email yourself the recipe for later use, or share the recipe with your friends or family, enter the email addresses below and this recipe will be emailed to you and others as well.