In Thailand there are two types of Crepes that you might run across, both called Kanom Buang.
Thai Crepe (Kanom Buang Yuan)
The larger ones are called Kanom Buuang Yuan and are made also by some street vendors and available on the menus of many Bangkok restaurants serving classic Thai or royal cuisine. The word Yuan means “Vietnamese” and refers to the Vietnamese Crepes that were the inspiration for the Thai version. In Thailand they are stuffed with a minced mixture of shredded coconut, roasted peanuts, shrimp, salted radish and fried tofu and served with bean sprouts and a sweet cucumber relish.
Kanom Buang Yuan is a recipe that Kasma taught in her weekend Advanced Series, Set A (class 4).
Kanom Buang Thai
(Click on an image to see a larger version.)
The smaller version of the crepes are called Kanom Buang Thai, to distinguish them from the larger yellow crispy crepes of Vietnamese origin. Fahrangs (that’s what the Thai people call Caucasians) sometimes mis-call them “Thai Tacos” because of their appearance. These kanom (the Thai word for snack) have a white filling often mis-identified as coconut cream; it is actually meringue – egg whites and sugar. The stringy bright yellow filling is not shredded mango but extruded duck egg yolks cooked in syrup, and the deep orange filling is a mixture of shredded coconut cooked with minced shrimp or ground dried shrimp and colored with orange food coloring (in the past the orange color came from the rich orange butter in the heads of fresh water prawns). Like many Thai sweet snacks and desserts made with eggs, the origin of this particular snack can be traced to the influence of Marie Guimar, the half-Japanese, half-Portuguese wife of a Greek minister (Constantine Phaulkon) to the Siamese royal court in the 17th century. Marie worked her way to the position of head of the royal kitchen and introduced the use of eggs in making desserts and other sweets.
Floating Market Crepes
Written by Kasma Loha-unchit, July 2009.