Gaeng Ki Lek: On the Trail of a Curry from Northern Thailand to Suburban KL

(In two parts)

About a year and a half ago Dave and I went road tripping in northern Thailand, and stopped for a night in quiet little Phrae.  It's an architectural treasure trove, the best place in the country to see old-style Thai buildings -- houses and temples -- made entirely of teak.

Beyond these wooden beauties, Phrae doesn't have much to offer the traveller.  Nonetheless, as is the case with most all Thai towns "upcountry" (any place not Bangkok -- whether north, south, east or west), Phrae's residents are laid-back and friendly, and its lodgings cheap, clean, and comfortable enough.  And like the rest of Thailand, in Phrae delicious food can be found on every corner, and at several spots in between as well.

The day after we arrived in Phrae we woke early to beat the heat that, by late morning during Thailand's hot-dry season, rises from the pavement in undulating waves that sear the nostrils (and to catch the best light for taking photos).  We toured a fairly well-preserved teak mansion in the center of the "old house district" and took another turn through the backstreets we'd walked the evening before, revisiting (and re-photographing) our favorite teak structures.  We made a pass through Phrae's small wet market, surprisingly quiet for a Sunday morning,

bought a big bunch of luscious lychees (another reason -- mangoes are the first -- to bear the heat and travel in Thailand in April and May) off the back of a truck parked on the main drag,

and suddenly realized we were famished.

Just up the street, a glass display case of curries beckoned.  Rich, mild green curries with tiny eggplant or bittermelon, fiery coconut milk-free "jungle" curries with fish or pork ... and a beige pork curry packed with olive-colored leaves: gaeng ki lek (ki lek leaf curry).  We'd run into gaeng ki lek only once before, at a touristy restaurant off of Bangkok's Silom Road that serves insipid, uninspired versions of Thai favorites (phad thai, green papaya salad, green curry with chicken) and exquisite renditions of lesser-known dishes (black peppercorn-fried pigeon and gaeng ki lek).  Ki lek leaves are unbelievably bitter, almost medicinally so; but in a spicy curry made slightly sweet with coconut milk their extreme bitterness becomes strangely alluring.

These leaves were a mystery to me.  I'd never encountered them in a market in Bangkok, and I'd never seen them uncooked.  So I couldn't determine their plant origin (and no one I asked knew).  Finding an English translation for the plant "ki lek" was stymied by the fact that the leaves and/or plant are named colloquially in Thai ("ki lek" literally translated is "iron shit"). 

Fast forward to last week, when Wan (our maid, fount of knowledge of Thai food esoterica, tutor in proper Thai behavior, and loving nanny to too many pets for going on four years) returned home from an evening walk with a grin on her round face, a twinkle in her brown eyes, and an armful of tree branches.

(to be continued...)

Comments

[RST]

Yai khi lek is cassia leaves. The most probable reason for your never having seen these in markets is their abundance and general availability in the countryside-these are huge (and beautiful) tropical trees that could be found virtually everywhere throughout SEAsia. The leaves used for cooking are from a specific species of Cassia-I will find you the exact scientific name later. Yes, the leaves are exceedingly bitter and if I remember correctly they are usually washed a couple of times (and also par-boiled? let me check on this) to remove the bitterness. Gaeng khilek is a rather down-home dish, not the kind of dish to be found in a restaurant. In Chicago, Thai Grocery on Broadway/Argyle regularly offers it as one of the lunch items on their back-room steam-table, which is as close as we get here to the multiple pots of home-cooked dishes of open-air streetside eateries in Thailand. Thai Grocery uses canned khilek in this case, but the final dish is quite good, and I often ask for it on my choose-2-items-plus-rice combination plate. Hey! It's almost lunchtime, and Thai Grocery is just around the corner from my house: I think I'll head down there and have some gaeng khilek today!

Let me guess what happens in part 2...Wan found a cassia tree in Kuala Lumpur and that transported her back to her beloved Thai countryside. ;0)

[RST]

Typo on the first letter of the previous post. I meant Bai (leaf) Khilek of course.

Well, I'm back from scarfing down my lunchbox at Thai Grocery. It's actually a 3-item (not 2) combo plate plus rice for USD4.50. Yes, they had gaeng khilek and thinking about it now, I don't remember not seeing it on offer ever. The ladies who do the cooking actually use brined leaves from a bottle marked with the Pantainorasingh brand ("imported by Thai Grocery"). But they confirmed that fresh leaves are available in the vegetable bins now and again throughout the year. (As with malunggay leaves in Filipino groceries or any of the other lesser-known leaves and herbs used in SEAsian cooking that I have written about on the old Chowhound Chicago Board, the fresh cassia leaves are brought in to Chicago from Florida.) My gaeng khilek is also coconut-based, and includes tiny bits of grilled pork. Yes, this is one of my favorite dishes from Thai Grocery! But I need to check the menu of Sticky Rice (a Chicago restaurant specializing in Northern Thai dishes): they might actually list this item there along with the khae mod daeng and the maeng da...

[Robyn]

What about the flower buds RST, do they use them in the curry as well?
I've really been barking up the wrong tree (ouch- bad pun) -- bec ki lek on the menu in Bangkok is translated as caper leaves. Googling caper has turned up nothing to match (though the buds look like caper buds and the leaves do resemble some caper bush/tree varieties). Will google cassia now.
Errr, yes -- you have guessed part two. I didn't really intend it as a mystery, but I do hope to include a recipe.

[Mike]

I used to live in a small village south of Hua Hin called Ban Khao Takiab, and one of the curry stalls there had gaeng ki lek every morning. It was my kind of breakfast. I also never knew what plant the leaf came from. Nice to finally get the answer.

[Robyn]

Hi Mike -- that sounds pretty idyllic. Any other lesser-known Thai dishes you used to enjoy in Ban Khao Takiab that you'd like to describe? I'm a sucker for Thai food esoterica!

[David]

The species is Senna siamea (it's not in the genus Cassia).

[baby gender predictor]

I am actually tucking into a bowl of gaeng ki lek right now and was wondering what the english name for this plant is. I'm abroad now, but when in Chiang Mai often go out to collect the leaves from young trees in the neighbourhood. They pick only the youngest soft leaves and boil them a couple of times before adding them to the curry. Very bitter but almost addictive! So is it really Cassia?

[Lasse Enevoldsen]

Hello. I have a few corrections to the previous comments.

Khi lek is the leaves of the 'Senna siamea' tree. They are also known as Siamese cassia, but scientific research have revealed that it is not related to the cassia plant. It is part of the legume family. And this might explain why one would have to cook and discard the cooking water before they can be eaten safely. This is the same procedure with almost every legume to, as you might know.

You can look it up and find proper references on Wikipedia fx..

They are used for medicinal purposes, but should not be consumed for longer periods, as they might induced liver-damage. the curry you are talking about is 'Gaeng khi lek' or 'Kaeng khi lek'. Thai words are often spelled differently, because they are transcriptions of how the Thai words sound. This might differ from place to place within Thailand.