Smoked American Lamb Khao Soi

Recipe provided by | THE HONEY PAW

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Servings: 8

INSTRUCTIONS

For the Lamb Curry:

1 whole American Lamb Shoulder – About 3-4 pounds

2 tablespoons Burmese Curry Powder – Sub Any Typical Curry Powder from Store

applewood chips for smoking

2 whole shallots chopped

3 cloves garlic chopped

1 stalk lemongrass chopped

3 Thai Bird Chilies De-stemmed and chopped

1 medium-sized knob ginger peeled and chopped

1 tablespoon vegetable oil

1 tablespoon shrimp paste

1/2 cup palm sugar

3 12 ounce cans of unsweetened coconut Milk

3 Cups Stock – Lamb is best, chicken or vegetable will do

1/2 lime

fish sauce to taste

salt to taste

Noodles:
3 pounds fresh or frozen thin egg noodles or tagliatelle – Do not buy dried noodles, they won’t fry properly.
vegetable oil for deep frying boiling salted water

Garnishes:
Thai pickled mustard greens chili oil fried shallots sliced shallot

10 sprigs cilantro – chopped

1 bunch scallions – chopped

lime segments

DIRECTIONS

Method For the Lamb Curry: 1. Rub the lamb shoulder with the Burmese curry powder and season judiciously with salt. 2. If you have a smoker, hot smoke the lamb shoulder with the applewood chips at 200°. In lieu of smoking the lamb, grill the lamb shoulder lightly over charcoal trying to create smoke by sprinkling some soaked applewood chips on the coals periodically and keeping the grill lid mostly closed. Don’t go too crazy here if you can’t accomplish this, the recipe still produces a delicious result without the smoking. 3. While Lamb is smoking, make your curry paste by pounding your shallots, garlic, ginger, lemongrass, and Thai Bird chilies into a fibrous paste in a mortar and pestle or alternatively pulse in a food processor. 4. After lamb has been smoked, using a Dutch oven that will be large enough to hold your lamb shoulder, gently fry your paste in vegetable oil until it begins smelling sweet and aroma of raw onion and garlic is gone. Add shrimp paste, and palm sugar and fry on low for two minutes and add your lamb shoulder turning it til the paste has stuck to all sides. 5. Add Coconut milk, stock and the half lime (rind and all) and bring to simmer, cover and put in a 250° oven. 6. Cook for 2-3 hours, checking after 2 hours. Meat should be coming off bone relatively easily when done. If it needs more time, flip the shoulder in the pan and continue cooking checking every 30 minutes. Don’t overcook! Or the meat will be dry and stringy, not succulent. 7. Once meat is tender, pull from oven and remove the lamb delicately onto a separate tray. Cover with foil 8. While meat is cooling, reduce the cooking broth by 1/3, while skimming some of the fat from the top. It should still stay brothy and it should still have some fat on top. These are characteristic features of the dish. 9. Season the broth once it is reduced with a few liberal shakes of fish sauce and salt to taste – it likely won’t need much. 10. When lamb is cool enough to handle, pull into nice bite-size pieces. Add back to broth. Try not to boil the sauce to hard after this point because you don’t want to overcook the lamb. For the Noodles: 1. Take a quarter of the fresh or thawed egg noodles and fry in 350° vegetable oil. They should puff up a bit and begin to brown quickly. Remove them from the oil as they start to brown and make sure they are all crispy. 2. Cook the remainder of the noodles in the boiling salted water until they are cooked through and tender but not flabby. Strain.

To Serve: 1. Heat the lamb curry back up to temperature. Again, don’t boil. 2. Divide noodles between 8 bowls 3. Ladle lamb curry over noodles. It should look a little soupy with the noodles mounding up through the broth. 4. Drizzle some chili oil around the noodles. 5. Sprinkle your chopped Thai pickled mustard greens, fried shallots, sliced shallots and chopped scallions, chopped cilantro across the bowls. 6. Top with a tangle of your crispy noodles. 7. Serve with a wedge of lime alongside for squeezing over the top.