I love khao suey - it’s warm and comforting, not overly spicy yet packed with flavour. The best bit is all the condiments you get to add on top of the noodles and curry. So every bite is a little different from the one before, depending on how much fried garlic, crispy onion, coriander and chilli you get in a mouthful 😃 Love it! Did I say that already?

Mum has a great khao suey recipe, but I couldn’t get hold of her yesterday, so I did my own thing and added a little twist - chicken meatballs, instead of the traditional boiled chicken. Massively pleased with how it turned out. Here’s my recipe! This serves 2 and a half (that’s my son 😃)

What you need

• Meatballs

  • 3 skinless boneless chicken thighs, minced (I just chucked them in a food processor). You could get chicken mince from the butcher instead

  • 1 large potato, boiled, peeled and mashed/grated

  • 1-2 spring onions, finely chopped (whites and green)

  • 2 tbsp ginger garlic paste (or 2 inch ginger and 6 garlic cloves, minced)

  • Salt to taste

  • 1/2 tsp chilli flakes (optional)

  • Vegetable oil to deep fry

• Coconut broth

  • 2 tbsp vegetable oil

  • 1 white onion, finely chopped

  • 2 tbsp ginger garlic paste (or 2 inch ginger and 6 garlic cloves minced)

  • 1 can coconut milk

  • 600ml boiled water

  • 1 chicken stock cube (I didn’t make the stock from scratch, but if you have the time or have some already, that always tastes much better)

  • 1 tbsp gram flour mixed with a bit of water to make a paste

  • small handful coriander, finely chopped, stalks and all

  • 2 tsp turmeric

  • Salt

• Garnishing

  • 1 onion, sliced

  • 6 cloves of garlic, sliced

  • 2 eggs

  • small handful coriander

  • chilli flakes

• Other

  • 3 egg noodle nests

What you do

1. Mix the chicken mince, mashed potato, spring onion, ginger garlic paste, salt and chilli flakes together in a large bowl

2. Heat vegetable oil in a deep wok/pan. When hot, break off small portions of the chicken mixture and roll between your palms to form balls, and deep fry until brown. Drain on a kitchen towel

3. You could start making your curry sauce while the meatballs are frying. Heat a couple of tbsp of vegetable oil in another pan and add the chopped onion when hot. Sauté until starting to turn colour.

4. Then add the ginger garlic paste, and sauté for 3-4 minutes

5. Then add the coconut milk, stir through, and add the stock and turmeric. Stir well, season, bring to a low boil, and then turn the heat to medium low and simmer for 15 minutes or so. (While the sauce is cooking, you could make your garnish condiments - go to step 8)

6. Add the gram flour paste to the sauce and stir continuously until the sauce starts to thicken. You don’t necessarily need to do this, I like it quite soupy, and if you don’t have gram flour you could use cornflour instead

7. When starting to thicken, turn off the heat and add the chopped coriander. Stir through. Check your seasoning and add more if needed

8. Garnish condiments: In the same oil that you fried your meatballs, fry your sliced onion until brown and crisp. Remove with a slotted spoon and drain on a kitchen towel

9. Then fry the sliced garlic, until brown and crisp. Remove with a slotted spoon and drain on a kitchen towel

10. Boil your eggs (around 8 mins), peel and dice/slice

11. Finely chop the coriander (If you were making the condiments while the curry sauce was cooking, go back to step 6)

12. Place your egg noodles in a deep saucepan, and cover with plenty of boiling water. Boil for about 10 mins. Drain in a sieve and rinse with cold water. Keep aside

13. While the noodles are cooking, you could pop your meatballs in the oven at 200C for 10 mins to warm through, and warm the curry sauce too

14. To serve, fork noodles into a wide bowl, ladle over plenty of curry sauce, top with meatballs, and garnish with fried onions, fried garlic, eggs, fresh coriander and chilli flakes!

Enjoy!