recipes & articles from head chef patron Sebby Holmes, owner of award winning Thai restaurant Farang London (2024)

Today’s recipe is one from my menu at the moment and it’s been a hit with the customers. Miang, translating in Thai as, ‘one bite wrap’, with a sweet, salty, sour and spicy fresh heat is the perfect accompaniment to a dinner of curry and noodles. In the restaurant we like this dish to come out in the early stages as it gets your taste buds ready for some serious flavour. It’s a great one for at home as you can make a mix up in advance and then get diners to help themselves, easy to share and delicious. Be careful though, one of them always ends up with all the birds eye chilli in it and gives someone an unexpected chilli blasting.

This recipe makes enough for 4-5 people tosnack on, if any is left just wack it in the fridge, it’ll keep for 2-3 days as long as it’s covered. You can find all of these ingredients in any good Asian supermarket , I prefernew loon moonin Chinatown for fresh goods as they have a large range of fresh goods in comparison to other shops (or pop into Farang and purchase of course).

Ingredients

For the Miang sauce

150ml, tamarind water
500g, palm sugar
150g, fish sauce / seaweed sauce if you are vegetarian
100g, toasted peanuts, semi-pounded in a pestle and mortar
100g, toasted dessicated coconut
1 tablespoon dried shrimp, pounded to a floss in a pestle and mortar, or spice ground to powder
(Don’t include if making vegetarian)
2, green birds eye chilli
1 teaspoon, fermented shrimp paste ‘Gapi’

For the rest

1cm cubed, piece of ginger, peeled and diced
6 Thai shallots, peeled and diced
1/2 a whole lime, diced with the skin on
2 tablespoon, toasted coconut
3 tablespoon, semi-pounded peanuts
2 red birds eye chillies, thinly sliced
A small handful of coriander leaves, washed
1 pomegranate, de-seeded and all pith removed.
20 betel leaves/ if you can’t find any then you can use baby gem leaves, or spinach leaves, washed and dried

Method

1. Firstly make the miang sauce. In a pan heat the palm sugar, and fish/seaweed sauce, and the gapi paste (not if its vegetarian obvs) on a medium heat, stirring regularly and making sure it doesn’t stick to the sides.

2. In the meantime, using a pestle and mortar pound the 2 green birds eye chillies. Then one by one add the rest of the dried ingredients so that they all end up making one dry mix that includes the coconut, peanut, dried shrimp and chilli. Keep heating the palm sugar and fish sauce until all sugar hasmelted and the sauce has just started bubbling, then add the tamarind water and temporarily remove from heat. Do not allow to bubble and caramelise otherwise it will be too thick.

3. Next add the pounded dry mix that you have pre-prepared to the sauce and whisk, ensuring that you separate any clumps of dried ingredients. This makes sure that the ingredients are well distributed and helps to balance flavours. Put this back on a medium heat and stir regularly for 5 minutes or until the sauce begins to gently bubble again. Remove and cool to room temperature.

4. Lastly add all the fresh ingredient to this sauce except for the betel leaves, mix delicately, being sure not to damage any of the ingredients that you’re mixing. Once everything is evenly distributed place a spoonful of this mixture into the middle of the betel leaves and arrange neatly on a plate. Then eat them up! Crispy fried prawns or pomelo are nice additives to place on top of each miang if you really want to push the boat out for your guests. Also garnishing with fine julienne lime leaves and crispy shallots help takes these to the next level.

So there you have it, pomegranate miang to make at home, I hope you enjoy the recipe

Thanks very much for stopping by my website and I hope you have enjoyed your stay. I always look forward to your feedback so please don’t hesitate to get in touch for any reason whatsoever – I will reply as swiftly as possible.

See you next time,

Cheers,

Sebby Holmes