Jok Moo
โจ๊กหมู·(joke moo)
Thai Morning Comforts & The Healing Pot
Jok is the ultimate Thai comfort food, the unquestionable cure for any ailment, and the smell of Saturday mornings. While restaurant versions simmer massive vats of pork bones and broken rice before dawn, real home cooks have a few brilliant tricks to achieve that exact same starchy magic on a Tuesday night. The secrets are incredibly practical: a blender to break down the grains, a handful of sticky rice to keep the porridge glossy, and "Sam Kloe"—the holy trinity of Thai aromatics—to make the pork meatballs impossibly flavorful and bouncy. Keep it simple. This is exactly what it tastes like at a street cart in Bangkok, conjured right in your suburban kitchen.
Before you start
Pulse the rinsed rice and one cup of the water in a blender until the grains break into coarse, gritty pieces.
Do not blend it into a fine paste; replicating traditional broken rice cuts the cooking time by seventy percent.
Aggressively pound the white peppercorns, garlic cloves, and cilantro roots in a mortar and pestle until they form a fine paste.
If you lack a mortar, finely mince everything and mash it flat with the side of a heavy knife.
Combine the ground pork, the aromatic paste, soy sauce, oyster sauce, tapioca starch, and ice water in a bowl.
Vigorously mix and slap the meat against the side of the bowl in a circular motion for about two minutes until it transforms into a pale, tacky paste, then refrigerate.
Ingredients
- jasmine rice1 cup
- glutinous rice1/4 cup
- water6 cup
- pork bouillon cubes2 large
- ground pork1 lb
- garlic cloves3 large
- cilantro roots or thick stems3 med
- whole white peppercorns1 tsp
- thin soy sauce1 tbsp
- oyster sauce1 tbsp
- tapioca starch1 tbsp
- ice water2 tbsp
- eggs4 large
- fresh ginger1 med
- crispy fried garlic and oil2 tbsp
- spring onions2 med
- cilantro leaves1/4 cup
- white pepper powder1/4 tsp
Method
- 01
Bring the remaining five cups of water to a boil in a Dutch oven and dissolve the pork bouillon cubes into the broth.
- 02
Stir the blended rice mixture into the boiling broth and reduce the heat to maintain a gentle simmer.
Cook for fifteen to twenty minutes, stirring frequently and scraping the bottom of the pot to prevent the rapidly thickening starches from scorching.
- 03
Scoop thumb-sized pieces of the chilled pork paste and drop them directly into the bubbling porridge.
Dip your spoon into a cup of cold water first to prevent sticking, then let the meatballs poach for three to four minutes until they float to the surface.
- 04
Ladle the hot, thick porridge and meatballs into warm bowls and crack a soft-boiled egg right into the center of each.
- 05
Garnish aggressively with ginger matchsticks, scallions, cilantro, crispy fried garlic, and a heavy dusting of white pepper.
Serve immediately, allowing everyone to adjust the final seasoning at the table with dashes of thin soy sauce.
Notes
The glutinous rice is not optional if you want the right texture.
A small handful of sticky rice is the grandmother's trick to preventing the porridge from separating into a watery mess as it sits, ensuring a perfectly glossy consistency.
Do not feel guilty about leaning on bouillon cubes for the broth.
Simmering pork leg bones for hours is noble work, but Knorr bouillon is an authentic, universally accepted shortcut in Thai home kitchens that makes this possible on a weeknight.
Use ground chicken thigh and chicken bouillon if you prefer to make Jok Gai.
The aromatic paste and tapioca starch method applies identically to chicken, yielding perfectly bouncy meatballs without drying out.
From Cook Thai in America.