Voting for May is here:
I absolutely love this dish, but it does require a lot of blotting with paper towels. I stopped using the cornstarch and lime juice called for in this recipe, which I ultimately didn’t find to produce a noticeably different omelet than one without (I don’t find it comes out really crispy as claimed especially once it’s time to eat it). These days I make the healthier version which, while not the same, is similarly tender and fluffy. I tend to use higher heat than she does in this video, though, so the eggs really puff up.
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I think a sieve like this might be useful.
https://www.amazon.com/Strainer-Skimmer-Swify-Stainless-Spaghetti/dp/B07YBVKB8R
I agreed with you with the lime juice, as for the corn starch, maybe it helps the egg to be a bit more crispy or it helps to tender the meat…
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I like to blot because it’s pretty oily from soaking up oil no matter how hot you get your oil.
The cornstarch or sometimes rice flour is to help with crispness, but ultimately that amount produces the same results as without. The lime is for tenderizing, but I find no need for it.
Lots of people call the dish crispy but imo that’s the little bits that sort of separate and it’s the result of egg getting cooked really hard and being a bit dried out as opposed to a crispness I really find enjoyable. You can see it here where she passes the egg through a strainer to create more small crispy bits. The actual center isn’t crispy because it retains moisture.
Personally the reason I like this so much is the supremely fluffy and and light texture (I like fluffy as opposed to creamy scrambled eggs) combined with the savoriness from fish sauce. A bit similar to egg foo young, but simpler and with a different flavor.
This method might be interesting to try because it uses a little more starch, and two different kinds (rice flour and sweet potato starch) and he first makes a batter out of them.
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I agree with the amount specified in the recipe, I don’t see a noticeable effect.
This is due to the whipping, I doubled the egg volume. I waited a bit too long before eating, as I was cooking something else, it softened a bit. But it won’t be as crispy as in the video. 
That’s a tempura!
BTW, do you feel the pork? I think maybe it wasn’t very obvious too. I would like a little bit more meat.
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Agitation factors into producing fluffy eggs, but it’s also the use of high heat, which makes eggs puff and produce big fluffy curds. It’s why if you want creamy scrambled eggs you generally want to keep the heat low, but if you want fluffy then you start with high heat which contributes to a rapid expansion.
The second video there is good for showing how much oil eggs soak up using this method, in spite of claims that it’s oil temperature leading to oil absorption. By design this dish will soak up a fair amount of oil. Eating it with plain rice to soak up the grease isn’t just for taste. 
I like the pork, but most times I make it without.
One way I like to make this is with imitation crab, which is what I used to order from a Thai restaurant.
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I made two eggs separately, each same size in a bowl, one egg was cooked less, I noticed it absorbed a lot less cooking oil. The second one, I cooked slightly longer, I noticed the leftover oil was almost gone.
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Yeah that definitely happens and you see it in that second video because he drains out the oil once he gets the initial puffing up. Between his making a batter with the starch and the draining it might be worth trying half the recipe for the sake of curiosity. I like his other recipes so I’m sure this one is solid.
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PORK (CHICK’N) SATAY
Usually when I make satay, I used flat tiles of fried tofu. It soaks up the marinade, grills well, and I like it. But I decided to make this recipe with a new chicken analogue I came across, Lightlife plant-gased chicken strips. I’ve never found a commercial chicken analogue that I wanted to buy more than once, and I’ll save you the suspense and say that this one is no different. It isn’t that it tasted bad, but I like tofu better. Now as for this recipe… the marinade is pineapple juice, coconut milk, water, cumin, coriander, and turmeric. Other versions I’ve made included some galangal and lemongrass, but they were absent here, and I missed their presence. I cut the plant-based chicken strips in half to make them half the thickness they were originally - 1/4" as opposed to 1/2". Then they went into the marinade for a few hours. Meanwhile, you make a cucumber relish and peanut sauce. Having already made the cucumber relish in this book, I decided to make the one from Pok Pok instead. It is not as sweet, and I reduced the sugar a bit more, because I knew the peanut sauce would be very sweet. For the peanut sauce, there are two versions given:
easy and less-easy. I used an amalgam of the two. The less-easy version has you grinding your own peanut butter, and I skipped that in favor of Jiff. But I did fry the curry paste at the beginning, a step that is skipped in the easy version, and used tamarind for the acid (the easy version uses vinegar). This satay sauce is very close to how I normally make it, which is a good thing (my normal version is one I’ve developed to suit my own tastes, and therefore is my favorite). I would highly recommend you try this version, using homemade curry paste. If you use a sweetened peanut butter like I did, you can reduce the sugar in the recipe (I used 1/2 cup). The sauce is very sweet, with a hint of sour, a pleasant heat, and the complexity it needs from the homemade curry paste. I served my satay with toast points, as directed, and essential in my opinion. They should be white bread, but I only had a GF whole grain bread on hand, so that’s what I used. The rice shouldn’t be there, but I was making a meal out of this and needed a little something more to fill it out.
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RICE NOODLES “DRUNKARD’S STYLE” WITH CHICKEN - Kindle
[kuai-tiao phat khi mao kai]
We like this dish so well that I’ve made it twice from this COTM, once with dried rice noodles, and this time, with fresh noodles. While the dried noodle version was very good, the silkiness of the fresh noodles really elevated the dish, and I highly recommend using them, although they require a bit of extra preparation.
A paste of fresh bird’s eye chiles, garlic, and shallot is briefly sautéed in oil, until fragrant. Next, onion wedges are allowed to sear for a few minutes. Sliced chicken breast (I went with BSCTs) is tossed into the mix, along with fish sauce. When the chicken is cooked through, the noodles, oyster sauce, soy sauces (I used regular), sugar, sliced Thai chile, and tomatoes go in, and are stir-fried for a few minutes until the noodles relax and the sauce is absorbed. Finally, once off the heat, the basil is tossed in until wilted.
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YAM WUN SEN | GLASS NOODLE SALAD
@MelMM has made the dish. So I won’t repeat the process. I used dried shrimp, ground pork, and octopus (instead of squid tubes) in addition, coriander leaves to substitute celery leaves and I didn’t add the fresh tomatoes.
I added a lot more lime juice and fish sauce to my taste. The salad was good, maybe I will prefer a bit more heat, I used dried bird’s eye chiles and tossed out some the seeds. I didn’t have the problem of noodles sticking together.
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I’ve noticed that peppercorns is not mentioned in many of the recipes in the book. Do you think it’s the author’s personal choice, or dried pepper is not popular in Thai cuisine.
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Looks good!
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I have a bit of a peppercorn obsession and have just been researching this. Apparently before chilies were brought to Asia, peppercorn was the source of spicy heat! Green peppercorns are used often, and this source says white pepper is more common: https://www.thaitable.com/thai/ingredient/ground-pepper
I just purchased some black peppercorn in a Thai market this week, so some must use it! Look for the pickled green peppercorns, they are interesting–though I’d love to grow my own and try them fresh, as I am not a fan of the brine in the jarred brand I tried. My husband regularly orders a pork dish full of the strands of green peppercorn.
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I had bought some pickled peppercorn from in Kampot, Cambodia, they were not in brine. Really good, apparently, it’s not something they export.
I noticed the absence of green peppercorn, too, also fingerroot. I can get both of these ingredients bottled without brine. Looks like the Jungle Curry might be the only dish in the COTM that calls for them.
I’m cooking Oxtail Soup from the book now, it did ask for peppercorns.
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White peppercorns were called for in the red, green, and matsaman curry pastes. They were called for in the yam wun sen.
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PAD THAI with SHRIMP
phat thai kung sot
I’ve made pad Thai a few times before and this recipe was pretty similar to previous ones I used. Tasted pretty good, tasted like pad Thai. I used dry rice stick noodles.
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SUP HANG WUA | OXTAIL SOUP
As mentioned in the introduction of the recipe, this is a Thai Muslim dish and rarely found in restaurants outside Thailand. About 3.5 hours of cooking, but easy. In a big pot, I used a dutch oven, covered the oxtail (I couldn’t find oxtail so replaced by shoulder) with water by 1.5 inch, tossed in the spices: green cardamom pods, 1 or 2 cinnamon sticks, some whole white or black peppercorns and salt. Brought the water to boil and covered the pot to shimmer for 3 hours, checked regularly and refilled if water level dropped. At the last half hour, added sliced yellow onion, tomatoes (I used can ones), potatoes, white parts of onions. Also, since I didn’t use oxtail, I tossed in some marrow bones. Before serving, stirred in bird’s eye chili, lime juice, green part of green onion, cilantro and fried shallots. I tried to adjust the taste as mentioned “the flavor should be sour first, then salty”, although mine was more “sour first, heat next, salty last”. Delicious and meat was tendered. Looking forward one day to do the oxtail version, with all the melting gelatin.
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