Life's to short to eat the usual and stand still

Passport & Plate - Larb

Thailand | Friday, February 13, 2015 | 5 photos

Ingredients
500g pork mince or pork and green prawn
juice 1-2 limes
2 TB spoon vegetable oil
2 cloves garlic, minced
6 shallots or spring onions sliced thin
1-2 TB fish sauce (to taste)
6 sprigs coriander, leaves only
1-2 TB palm or brown sugar
pinch dry chilli
Salad plate:
lettuce - coz or iceberg
thai basil
coriander
mint
bean sprouts
toasted rice (jasmine rice cooked in a dry wok till toasted and pounded with a mortar and pestle)
lime cheeks
capsicum
cucumber
fresh sliced chilli
fried shallots
homemade mango chilli sauce (made from mangos off my tree and chilli out of the garden!)

 

How to prepare this recipe
1. mix lime juice into pork mince and stand for a few minutes
2. heat oil in a hot wok
3. add pork and garlic, fry quickly breaking up any large lumps
4. remove from heat and add shallots, fish sauce, coriander, sugar and chilli
5. toss it all together and place in a serving bowl along side the salad ingredients
6. place the desired salad ingredients into individual bowls top with the pork and enjoy!

 

The story behind this recipe
I fell in love with Thailand on a brief stop over on our way home from a holiday in Europe and itched to return as soon as possible. We returned some years later with good friends and had supreme holiday. We traveled by train over night with the locals, a ferry as the sun was rising and a dirt road ride in the back ute to our rooms on the edge of the national park. We quickly feel in love with the location at Ko Lanta, (the not so mainstream tourist end of the island) and the eccentric staff who were mostly all lady-boys at Baan Phu Lae. I had planned on doing a cooking class while there and when chatting to Rosie, our host, who each morning would ask what we were planning to do and see how he could help, he said we could do a class there. We had loved the food we had been eating there, so we agreed. It was hands down one of the best cooking experiences I ever had, and I've had a few! We walked from the spacious well maintained restaurant area out the back door into another world. It was an open air kitchen looking out to banana trees with the sound of the nearby ocean. , It had a few gas burners topped with woks on wobbly tables cover with plastic tablecloths, cutting boards of think sliced of wood from a nearby tree, plastic bowls and utensil, food stacked all around, a small fridge humming in the corner and lots of flies. I was in total awe of the cooks, I had been dining on the most amazing fresh food from this little kitchen all week. It is here in this 'real' Thai kitchen, no fancy cooking class that I learnt this fresh and flavour packed Larb dish along with some other super recipes. Seven years on I still make regularly and when I do it takes me back to that place where I fell in love with the people, the location, the culture, the religion, the food and the flies!