Just before we left Laos my wife cooked up some Gaeng Kai Mot Daeng next door at her sisters house. We stayed at that house for a couple of months back in 01 before Creag was born. They have a gas burner but like most in Vientiane prefer the charcoal. It’s cheaper and burns very hot. Smokes up the kitchen a little, oh well.
Above cooking up the soup in Bien's kitchen in 07
Geang Kai Mot Dang has to be about as unweird a type of insect food as I’ve ever eaten. The thing it reminded me of the most was the popular Tom Yung Koon that you can buy in any Thai restaurant in the world. The texture of the eggs is a little like soggy puffed rice. No crunchy legs and heads as with most insects.
I didn’t think we would still be around when it was time to get the ant eggs. The nest was in a bush out our back door. I’d kind of forgotten that we were even going to eat them, but I did keep a distance from the nest Creagy got bit once, he steered clear of them ever since. It's like being stung by a bee. Back in November I took a picture of an ant up close and personal.
The white in the background is the nest.
Separating the eggs from the soldier ants requires a bucket of water. When the eggs and nest are in the water the adult ants lie still and even clump up in the water. They aren’t dead just saving their energies. You don’t want to just throw them in the trash or you’ll have a trash can full of angry red ants when you come back. Inevitably some of the ants get left with the eggs, it’s said that’s where the sour taste comes from.
Knowing I don’t like the tiny freshwater fish with millions of tiny bones, Sengthian added beef to the soup. Tasted pretty good, I always think Lao beef is a little gamey anyway, went well with the sour and slightly fishy taste. The other ingredients were the usual suspects. Tomatoes, green onions, tamarind leaves, bai kii hoot, hot peppers, kah, pak wan, home peaow. No ginger, fish sauce or lime juice.
On the plate up top is the chopped beef, below it the ant eggs which are white, and down at the bottom of the plate a few kafir lime leaves. Below the plate is home paeow, and above the plate is pak wan (sweet leaves).
If you look closely in the center of the photo you can see one of the adult ants that made it into the soup. A couple are ok, adds sour, too many is too much.
The soup is light but flavorful with a flavor not unlike shrimp, the bits of hot pepper add fireworks when chewed. The perfect seasonal soup as the eggs are produced in the hot season when the temperatures can be very hot.