I'm in Ken which is in northeastern Thailand and today we're going to eat an extremely rare thae dish that includes fish and an entire tray of herbs, but really quickly. First, how did we get here? In order to support local communities and highlight their unique food, the Tourism Authority of Thailand has recently announced Thailand's hidden dishes which includes five rarely seen Thai Dishes that come from five lesser visited provinces and they asked me to travel across Thailand to eat all of them after eating a spectacular AKA meal in the mountains of Changai. Today, we're in Ken Northeastern Thailand to cook and eat a traditional Ean dish that you won't find on menus. So we ended up having to drive our rental car from Changai to Changai.

It was about a three-hour drive or so because Changai is a bigger city and they have a direct flight to Ean where we're going to find Thailand's next hidden dish. Okay, here we go Goodbye: Northern Thailand We made it welcome to Ken This is in Ean in the northeastern region of Thailand. Let's go eat. but before we go to eat Thailand's hidden dish, There's one thing that you absolutely abolutely have to eat when you come to.

Ken We got here just in time. He's making a fresh batch of grilled chicken Salt crusted grilled fish, other grilled items and you eat it along with fiery grilled papaya salad something you can't miss when you come to Ean Hit met hit met. That is the dish that you have to eat when you come to Ken or Tambala uh fermented fish with crab, green papaya salad and they do it in incredibly well here. all the chilies are already half pounded so they then she just takes a giant spoon of it plus dry chilies to the motor and pestal to pound those up.

But I asked her about how many chilies she added and she said uh it's about 50 chilies on one plate. Oh man and yeah so I I just asked her about how many chilies she said about 50 Serious? Seriously, there's more. This is one of those plates where look if you scoop down below there's more chilies then papaya. oh man.

she added in mectin white popinac seeds. Look at that. look at that bite. Oh I'm going to okay Oh oh wow, oh man, that's going to be fire in a few minutes.

It's crisp, it's salty, It's balanced with a little bit of sweetness. Oh man, it's refreshing. You've got the mommy of the fermented fish sauce. the Pala the crabs in there, the tomatoes, the lime juice, the acidity.

Okay, first bite is not that spicy but you can tell it's already starting to build. It's going to build for sure. Oh yeah, that's tasty. Okay sticky rice.

What you can do is ball up a a ball of sticky rice and then dip. submerge. The fragrance of the Pala with the lime juice has a little bit of a sweetness to it as well. All of that balance of flavor.

Okay, it's starting to the spice. My mouth is on fire. I Think they're also quite well known for their gang. their grilled chicken.

Give it a dip in the num Chim Mhm Chicken is smoky. It's really juicy and really creamy on the inside. We also got some thumb sapad on. This is a pork rib bones sour soup.

Lots of herbs in here. You can see lots of chilies in here too. Mushrooms, lime juice. Oh when you take whoa when your mouth is on fire from the chilies and then you take the hot soup and they keep there's charcoal in it's a fir pot.

They keep charcoal in here to keep it boiling and hot. When you take the hot soup on top of those chilies, it just magnifies it. Oh that brings a tear to your eye. Let's go back in for more.

Oh I'm sweating. Oh yeah this is a feeling. A sensation you don't want to miss when you come to Kken My mouth is on fire. Oh oh pet Ching Super spicy.

Oh man Yes! Oh there was a tear it dripped down. Luckily the rain has cleared. my entire face is on fire. A really friendly family Okay from here we are on our way to the next place where we're going to discover and learn about Thailand's hidden dish of Ken Some come some come come.

So we have met up with P. Kamang and she is an Ean. She's a so knowledgeable. she's a a writer, she's a historian.

she knows the history of dishes of Ean culture and the food and she has. It's actually an amazing modern restaurant, but she cooks in the extreme traditional way and so she was just explaining to us a little bit about the dish that we're going to be preparing which is Thailand's hidden dish of isan which is called Al or a can be called either though which is called op And so it's a dish with fish that uses some of the freshwater fish of this region. but it's a dish I mean I've been to Ean many times. I've never had it before I've never seen it Ying Have you tried this dish before? It really is a hidden dish.

It is a hidden dish and we have the privilege to be here to watch the entire process, how it's going to be made and of course to eat it. Okay, so she's getting started. first steaming the rice. She has such a cool setup here.

the house big tables, big yard here, but then in the yard here she has this uh Hut set up with a traditional kitchen, all the traditional utensils, baskets for steaming clay pots Ceramics uh so that she can teach so that she can preserve the ancient cooking techniques. Kun Kamang has set out all of the ingredients for the AL There's fish in the name uh, but she said that it needs to be a type of soft fish, a type of freshwater fish and today the name of the fish. Uh, it can be a variety of names of fish, but the fish is called bong, which in English is sudas, pania fish and then this just incredible variety of herbs and produce. There's galangal, there's Chili's shallots, garlic, there's herbs you could see, um, looks like lemon basil.

Dill I think that's rice Patty herb. There's some mustard greens, there's some flowers, there's some stems. This is all going to go into the dish and this main seasoning ingredient you never want to miss when you're in Ean is Pala which is fermented fish sauce. So we're going to see the whole process from here.

As an expert on Isan food and a historian and a writer. Uh, this is a dish that she has been promoting for the last five years and like bringing back Reviving bringing it back to life, promoting it as a dish that should be celebrated. Oh, so this is a must. That herb she explained is very important in this recipe and it's called sadin I Don't know of the English name of it but it provides this bitterness but not just a not just a sharp bitterness, but it's a well-rounded She said it's a well-rounded bitterness.

so uh and the fish go into she just slices them and then into some salt water so she's starting preparing the fish. So I'm going to help her do a little bit of pounding Right now. She's just, uh, ratioed out the correct amount of galangal, lemongrass, shallots, chilies, and garlic. Okay, so first for the galangal okay, and then lemongrass goes in.

Oh, the aroma's come out. Garlic? Okay, okay, okay, okay, so oh so you don't want it to actually be too fine. You just want to. You just want to break break the ingredients so that the flavors come out okay, just kind of like one smash.

Okay, the process of making this is just totally unlike what I was thinking. A lot of dishes. you know you take those same ingredients and you make a curry paste and you pound it until it's uh, completely, all the fibers have been dissolved into a very fine oily paste. For this one, you just want to smash all of the ingredients just to so their flavors are released.

Then she actually puts the the Bala the fermented fish sauce into the cook with all of those ingredients and then the fish goes into that and she just stirs it around. It's chunky, just full of those fragrant herbs already. Ah, oh so now into small little clay pots, a variety of all those herbs. Oh beautiful, Beautiful.

So after you got a whole, she's got a whole bed of herbs on the bottom of the clay pot. Then the fish mixture goes on. It's going to cook roast for about 15 minutes now. Something that I've learned is that the the whole name of the dishes is called AA A is this style of cooking like kind of roasting in a clay pot? Is that correct or is it the or is it the whole process? It's the whole process it it depend off the the liquid have to be highlight a little bit of the liquid a little bit of water.

that's why. Oh so it's not just like cooking in a clay pot. It's not just roasting, it's not just boiling. it's a little bit of water.

That's why she added in a little bit of water, then it Cooks over the fire in the clay pot with a lid on. That's what an awe is. It's such a healthy, such a vibrant dish, such a traditional dish, and just all those herbs are of so much importance so that needs to be on the fire for approximately 15 minutes to cook. In the meantime, she has some other dishes that she's already prepared earlier this morning that she wants us to try right now as that's cooking Man, what a what a treat I mean this is straight up Chef's Table in her home where she has this huge long table.

I mean you could I mean she caters to only private groups here. Uh, preserving the art, the tradition, the wisdom of Isan Cuisine w Wow I am just blown away. This is the first dish. This is one of the most impressive dishes.

Platters I think I've ever seen it's called and it is a roasted salt crusted roasted snakehe head fish with an entire Garden of lotus flowers made into little cups with all the different meang inside with like shallots and coconut and lime. There's butterfly pea flowers and then the dressing which is sugar cane juice as well as fermented fish sauce in there. What a display! This is gorgeous. Okay not so you take one of those little lotus flowers and then you take some of the the snakehead fish which is grilled and roasted and she look at the look at the texture of that snakehead fish.

She said the salt is a special type of salt that's not that salty. okay that goes inside then some of the dressing. Okay my cup. Okay here we go cup my cup.

I Cannot wait to try it. Oh wow that is an absolute Symphony in your mouth the Petals of the lotus just kind of dissolve on your tongue. you've got the the ginger, the lemongrass, the lime, the shallots all Crunch and bring their flavor yet nothing is overpowering. the smokiness of that fish, the oiliness of it and the light sweetness of the sugar cane with the fragrance of the Bala wow oh I marup t t Mar it's so good.

It's the most balanced dish of this kind I've ever had appetize and it's just the appetizer appetizer soig Another method to do it. add in some of the the petals insides of the the Lotus flour plus a butterfly pea flour plus some of the salt from the crust of the fish. That's even more things going on in your mouth. M I love it with that salt.

all that even enhan es it more M Mhm That was the expert move there. that sprinkle of salt from the fish crust. oh it's so good and it's not that salty yet it's just a balance. oh that's impressive.

Next dish I'm going to take some of the Canam genene the rice noodles onto my plate. half half a hardboiled egg. The dish is called K so again it's Pala it's fermented fish sauce in here. You see the the muit lime in there and this goes over the noodles.

oh the chilies, all the aroma. oh the muit man you can see all the chunks in there, all the herbs, all the galangal. okay m oh that egg is incredible. The the warm gooiness of the yolk and that Curry it.

you immediately taste the herbal medicinal flavor of it tastes like fingerroot and galangal and the mut lime in there has this incredible depth of fish complexity to it, fermentation to it. Oh but not again, not overpowering. So clean. We got all the raw vegetables to eat, mustard greens and mint and cucumbers and flowers.

Very refreshing. Mhm. The next dish this is a a chicken broth called lamai. It is cooked in the the bamboo roasted in the bamboo.

um and it's like a healing medicinal chicken broth. Oh that's the the definition of chicken broth right there. Oh that brings a whole new meaning to the word chicken broth. It's condensed.

There's so much chicken a AR to it. and yet it's not light. It's not heavy, it's not greasy even. You can almost taste the sweetness of the bones.

Oh man, that's a broth to cherish. Whoa. Another dish. The the presentation is on the next level.

We've come to one of the signature dishes here and I like a oh so it is. So many things going on and something truly unique and interesting. It is pork ribs with these uh they're called gra. but I believe in in English I mean they're known as Isan almonds.

It's a type of nut that grows locally here, but the milky substance on the inside of the pumpkin is a combination of those nuts. The nut milk from those nuts plus 3 kilos of crickets Cricket powder crickets pounded into that and that's a sauce for the pork ribs. What a unique dish this is. This is a really old recipe, actually impossible to find unless you're here like incredibly rare rare.

Ean Food strategy here is to grab grab a bone. it's going to be so tender. Oh oh it's just falling off the bone. Oh it's been cooked for two days.

Oh man. oh I don't even know if it's possible to pick up the bone, it just slides out. Wait, we might need to pick up two bones. Okay, the first step is to just actually taste the the pork on.

whoa the bones are just sliding. I can't even hold the bones Okay, cooked for two days. Wow! a baby can eat that. It's so tender the fat is just turned to liquid on your on your mouth.

That is unbelievable. Oh it's so fragrant and fatty juicy. Oh it's just oh oh man oh that's incredible. Okay and then you take some of the the milk which is again a combination of crickets and Ean almonds.

Wow, that's like whipped cream. My side my side know I come there's no milk. no Dairy whatsoever in that that is like thicker and richer than whipping cream. Wow, that is unbelievably creamy and so fragrant.

you don't Oh it's like Bal there's Bala in it too. fermented fish but you don't really taste it, it just brings it. It's that Harmony that is ultra cream. I'm going to grab a piece of the pork and then one more dip the num gy with garlic and Chili's sesame seeds that provides a contrast to the richness because you got that really fatty.

Rich Park the really creamy almond milk. the ckets and then that's really nicely sour garlicky. Wow, that combination is extraordinary I Think we need to try a combination with everything on it? Go in for some of this on top of the pork. Some of the milk.

okay, that's the bite. Oh wow. Okay, that combination is takes it to the next level. Oh, the entire bite just melt in your mouth collapses.

Creaminess, sour acidity, chilies, and garlic. Porky Liquids Wow, that's that's unbelievable. Never had a dish like this before. Totally different from anything and absolutely extraordinary.

Okay, okay, okay. A little bit of the little bit of the pumpkin next. Wow, that is. That's like the creamiest pumpkin you'll ever have.

either. Twoo cream on top of cream on top of fatty, meaty juices. Oh, that's unbelievable. Oh, almost forgot, the dried chilies.

Oh that's so fragrant. Oh yeah, that's spicy. Okay, so here we are. this.

It's another just mindblowing tray of different Isan stews and dishes. and uh, boiling. Patty rice Patty Crab heads boiling away. We've got sticky rice.

and then this, the that is the main dish. I Mean we came to eat everything, but that dish is what we saw. The entire process of that is the Ean hidden dish of Thailand So you should take some sticky rice. Oh NE my cup.

Okay, oh it's really fragrant sticky rice. I'm going to take a a piece of the fish. Okay, oh yes. the head.

Oh all of those herbs down there. dab it. Kind of like dab it into the fish. Get a little bit of that buttery fish.

plus a little bit of those herbs. Oh yeah oh that flavor is unbelievable. I got a sweet chot. The Chili's in there.

the herbs. That one bitter leaf that she said that she added that is an absolute must. It gives this bitterness, but it's a sweetness at the same time. Like she said, it's so well-rounded you taste the dill in there.

The lemongrass. the fish is so buttery, melts in your mouth with that fresh young sticky rice that is unbelievable. Oh what a dish. Oh man it's just so healthy, so natural tasting, so herbal.

The fermented fish in there to bring out the to bring in the sauce. um but then also she said you have to use something that's watery juicy such as fish that brings the waters and the juices come out of it to make that broth. Wow that's that's something extraordinary that is incredibly tasty. Yeah and some of the you can see that the herbs are at different stages of of dness.

Oh man you taste the lemongrass. The dill m that is the most like well-rounded medicinal bitter broth you'll ever taste. Oh it's good. It's like sweet naturally from all those herbs.

Herbaceous chili. Laden the oils of the fish has come out. oh it's so good while it's still boiling. I Want to try those crab heads? So you dip your sticky rice.

Oh oh that's so rich. it's buttery, it's creamy and taste the naturalness of it. Oh it's so good. So creamy.

Oh and the even the rum of that smoke smells like hissing melted butter. Wow, that is a delicacy. Feels like roasted brown butter. Oh man, the butteriness of that fish.

The balance of herbs. that chili is on fire. I Almost cannot believe that's true. Like it's the perfect balance.

Harmony Every herb is in there for a reason. The counter contrast: sweet, spicy lemongrass, asy herbal, the dill, the bitterness. The Buttery Fish: the fragrance of the fermented fish sauce. It's it's truly extraordinary.

Okay, we have some more dishes to try next up. I'm going to go go for the next dish, which is called Kung mrock. So it's the little freshwat shrimp with the water olives. What a dish! Water olives are a unique ingredient.

Oh little shrimps are so fragrant and sharp you got to chew them up. Oh man. then you got the like. tastes like roasted shallots and chilies and then you got the bitter.

kind of like the stringency of the water olive. and then you eat it. She said it's good to chase it with this. this one.

this herb. the contrast. what? oh like a mustardy Wasabi Greens Yes oh yes. the next St is called Gang So why are the ratan shoots here I Believe with bone in ribs? Oh man, this looks incredibly delicious.

M It's unbelievable. Again, it has that contrast of bitter spicy sweet but not not a sugary sweet like a fresh shs or fresh herbal sweet meaty from the pork. M oh that's unbelievable. The depth and complexity of flavor is unbelievable.

Okay and next up for a dish called Om Om this is beef with lots of Dill So the thing with Om is you need to have some of the some of the rice rice in here to kind of thicken it I think and then pieces of looks like beef. Shin Isan has a lot of incredible food and one of the things that I've always thought is that you know like the sometime the green papaya salad is the most famous but these stews these hyper Regional like often times seasonal herbal stews are truly some of my favorite dishes in. Ean Things that I could eat daily that like just blow my mind with complexity and flavor. These traditional stews oh man really heavy on the dill the lemongrass.

The beef melts in your mouth, the rice just kind of thickens it. Outstanding everything. This is award-winning actually. and then I think this might be the final dish of the meal.

Lamai this is the chicken that was cooked in the in the bamboo. oh wow that melts in your your mouth. It is so tender, literally falls off the bone it's been cooked overnight. You really taste the fragrance of the lemongrass in there chilies.

oh it has that kind of just so fragrant. Smokey W Everything is just on the next level. These are the highest quality of every dish that I've ever had. and just so many unique flavors like it's an actual overdose of complexity of flavor in your mouth.

Right now. that was an unbelievable meal. I Am actually stuffed right now. So much food! some of the most impressive platters of food I've ever seen.

and we're having a traditional Isan dessert called B Manoi and it's a like a leaf jelly, a leaf jelly on the bottom with coconut milk on the top. M Oh that's delicious you Mhm. Well it kind of has a a green taste to it, but then almost a vanilla pandan Aroma to it as well. a very light melt in your mouth richness of the coconut milk, fragrance of sesame seeds.

Yeah, it's really good. really light. Oh yeah. oh I'm pretty stuffed.

That was, uh, just an unbelievable meal and all the dishes were rare. extremely hard to find and I absolutely love what Kun Kamam Nang is doing. She's a historian preserving the wisdom and culture of Isan Cuisine and so I would highly, highly recommend her restaurant when you visit. Ken From here, we're driving back to the city and we have dinner.

Okay, well it's a little bit dim in here. Uh, but welcome to again. While this restaurant's very popular, tables are full. Um, and it is a chef driven restaurant, but you do order off the menu.

it is a full menu list not a not a chef's table so they actually have a mix of isan some other Regional Thai Dishes on their menu as well as even some Western food on their menu. but I'm going to keep it. uh try to try some of their their Ean specific dishes off with a probiotic beverage. they had four to choose from I chose the papache it's called they said Pineapple chilies and ginger.

oo nice. Oh the chilies and ginger. first dish has arrived which is Gang Om one of my one of my favorite Isan dishes. Um, it is more like a stew with a right amount of ratio of water which simmers down creating this sauce.

There's usually lots of lemongrass, lots of Dill there's basil in here. there's green chilies. this one is the upgraded version with oobo and also I mean and it is local Thai beef from the next Province over with the bone marrow on the inside. oh that beef is so tender.

I'm going to grab a spoonful. it's very aromatic, very herbaceous. all the beef melt in your mouth I love the finally shape lemongrass, all the herbs the dough in there. it's a little bit mild but the herbs are very fresh.

Okay here we go. The rest of all the dishes we ordered have arrived. Oh thank you but first before we start eating some rice wine Kapun I'm going to start with a gang bub. This is a isan another stew full of vegetables and thickened with rice.

M that one is really Fresh So Many herbs and vegetables. So many different textures of vegetables as well. Okay, next up for the suam. and suam is of course pounded papaya salad.

But and we've I mean we've already had the papaya version this morning. but this is a totally different version. not even made with Papaya But there's pork. there's there's shrimp s on the top and then on the bottom there's the the pounded salad made from hik made from Tom Tomatoes.

Oh, there's even cashews in it and long beans and should be some Bala in here as well. Pick Sal Okay, that's really good. Oh man. Fragrant, not very pungent, but nice rounded flavor.

The hikma gives a crunch. It's also very soft, like kind of like an apple. Um, kind of like dissolves. Then you got the nuts.

Got the tartness of the Tomatoes The Long beads in there. Okay, got to chase that with a Sa who. Very juicy. Okay, the next dish that we got is the M.

So this is and there's fig leaves in it. He said there's fig leaves, there's fish, there's curry paste, there's coconut milk. I'm going to take some of this onto my rice and then he likes to eat it with PN Chili's fish sauce. garlic.

Oh there shallots. This one is nice. really chunky. oh that's really good.

I think what's really making it are the Smoky fragrance of the Fig leaves the curry paste. the fish is just so uh buttery and then with that fish sauce that brings out the flavor. The food was really fresh, top quality and I loved all those different ferments that they make I Want to say a big thank you first of all to you for watching this entire video. Please remember to give it a thumbs up if you enjoyed it.

Leave a comment below I'd love to hear from you and if you're not already subscribed, make sure you subscribe now for lots more food and travel videos. and I want to say also a big thank you to the Tourism Authority of Thailand for making this entire trip happen. Tomorrow we fly back to Bangkok then we're going to get in our car and drive to the province of Pep Buri which is in the western part of central. Thailand for Thailand's next hidden dish and it's going to be a rare dish.

We're going to harvest the ingredient from a tree and they're going to make a very rare unique Curry something you're not going to want to miss. so stay tuned.