Today I shopped for the ingredients for the Larb Woonsen Moo Sap (Thai minced pork spicy salad with mung bean thread noodles) that I plan to make this weekend. As I left the supermarket I realized that I hadn't checked to see if I had any mung bean thread noodles. So I went to the local Thai grocery and bought some. While looking for them on the shelves I encountered something I'd never heard of before--wide mung bean noodles. These look a lot like thick, wide dried rice noodles but they are made from mung bean starch. So that brings the kinds of mung bean noodles I know about to three:
Mung bean thread noodles, also known as glass noodles or mung bean vermicelli. These are very thin and transparent when cooked (hence the name glass noodles). They show up in Chinese dishes such as hot and sour soup and Ants Climbing a Tree, and also in Thai Larb Woonsen Moo Sap.
Mung bean jelly noodles. Called liang fen in Chinese. These are made fresh out of just mung bean starch and water and cut into thin noodles about 1/4-inch wide. I have a recipe that uses these but I haven't tried making them yet.
Wide mung bean noodles, or wide glass noodles. These are the new ones I encountered today. They come dried and look a lot like wide rice noodles, but they are made with mung beans.
Has anyone made a dish using wide mung bean noodles? I'll have to check my Thai cookbooks to see if they have any.
-Paul W.