A Royal Snack

How about taking a bite of the snack that had been served in the royal court of a Thai King? Miang kham; just like the name  of the snack implies; miang, food wrapped in leaves and kham, a bite; you'd just have to wrap all the ingredients; shallots, bird's eye chili peppers, ginger, garlic, lime, roasted coconut, peanuts and dried shrimps with the leaves of Piper sarmentosum and topped them up with coconut sugar before finishing it off with just one bite. Said to have its origin in Thailand; Laos too; Miang kham was introduced to the Siamese court of King Rama V by Princess Dara Rasmi. I was only just introduced to it by my colleagues. They taught me to make a cone out of the love-shaped leave of pokok kaduk; that's what we called Piper sarmentosum ; fill it up with all the ingredients and load the whole lot of the traditional South East Asian snack into the mouth. To be fair, a bite isn't enough to finish the snack off. One has still to chew properly to get the best out of the royal snack!





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