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Soup

Or Lam Nok Kho

A Laotian soup of quail, eggplant, chili, lemongrass, and herbs simmered with pork skin and long beans.

From the Recipes Wiki (Fandom) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Eggplant and basil match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 271 recipes. Both carry alpha-pinene, which smells pine, turpentine. The science ↓

Or Lam Nok Kho

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the soup

  1. Put 2 metal jugfuls (2 pints) of water in a pot and place it on the fire.

  2. Add the prepared quail, eggplants, chili peppers, spring onions, lemongrass, so-kahn, and salt.

  3. Cover and let it boil.

  4. Add the padek in a padek basket suspended in the soup.

Cook and finish

  1. When the eggplants and the chili peppers are done, spoon them out and pound them. Put this mixture back in the pot.

  2. When it returns to the boil, add the phak toni nin and the long beans.

  3. When all is done, add the pieces of pork skin and the chopped coriander leaves, taste and check the saltiness.

  4. Serve in a bowl, garnished with the chopped spring onion leaves.

Serve

  1. Accompany the dish with young cucumbers, older eggplants, and other fresh vegetables such as salad leaves and watercress.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

344Calories
30 gProtein
15 gFat
25 gCarbs

Counts 8 of 10 ingredients. The other 2 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 8 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Pork100g cooked242
Onion1 medium (110g)44
Eggplant1 cup cubed (82g)35
Lemon Grassjuice of 1 lemon (48ml)12
Pepper1 tsp ground (2.3g)6
Dill5 sprigs fresh (1g) / 1 tsp dried4
Sweet Basil5 leaves fresh (2.5g)1
Salt1 tsp (6g)0
Quailnot in our table0
Beannot in our table0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

Recipe from the Recipes Wiki (Fandom).

Steps grouped into stages for easier reading; the method is the source's own.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Eggplant + basiltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together271 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  2. Dill + basiltop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together154 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-methoxybenzaldehyde (sweet, anise).

  3. Lemon grass + basiltop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together108 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  4. Pepper + basiltop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,294 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  5. Pepper + dilltop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,630 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Dried quail
Matured meat gives the soup a deep, pungent savoury flavour as it simmers.
Eggplants
Softened and pounded, they thicken the broth and add body and mild sweetness.
Padek
Fermented fish adds strong salty umami that seasons the whole soup.
Long beans
Add crisp-tender texture and fresh vegetable bite to the soup.

The step that matters

Pounding the eggplants and chili peppers. Pounding after they are fully cooked breaks down the soft flesh so it blends into the broth and thickens it. Removing them too early leaves them firm and watery, while overcooking makes the mixture bland and mushy.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (quail, eggplant, pepper, lemon grass, dill, basil, pork):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Spinachfits better
  3. Lettucefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against quail, eggplant, pepper, lemon grass, dill, basil, pork. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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