Thai Pork Salad

February 11, 2003

When I was a young newspaper reporter, I decided I would like to learn how to lay out pages in the newspaper. This was back in the 1960s when women were barely tolerated in the newsroom let along on the "subs' bench‚" which was occupied by an august collection of middle-aged male sub-editors. It was their job to go through all the stories for the paper, assigning them to pages, sifting through the words for grammatical indiscretions, sense, possible libel, accuracy and a dozen other little things.

Some of these men were very pedantic and woe betide the young - and not so young - journalist who transgressed the rules.

The chief sub in those days certainly wasn't going to let me perch on the bench - certainly not when he was around, anyway. And so I had to resort to subterfuge. His deputy, who ruled the roost in the boss's absence, agreed to take me on board on a Saturday when the boss was on the bowling green.

One of my reporting colleagues had been helping out doing a food page called "Cooking with Mary Anne‚" and it was decided he could teach me the basics. A straight three columns had to be filled and there were many recipes and photos to choose from. I was in my element.

At first I peppered the page with as many typefaces as I could find on the chart. But I soon learned that looked a mess - less was more and was definitely classier.

I graduated on to the "cable page‚" or overseas news and managed to make myself reasonably useful about the place. Eventually I ended up as features editor with several pages a day under my control. The chief sub no longer seemed to mind having me around.

The colleague who had handed over his Mary Anne page to me went on to do greater things and ended up running his own communications company and I moved into corporate relations work. I engaged him to produce a corporate video and we met a couple of times over lunch to discuss the project. It was he who introduced me to Thai food in a little restaurant in Auckland - a stone's throw from where I had spent a couple of years imprisoned at boarding school, but that's another story.

My first taste of Thai was a meat and salad dish called Laab (also seen as larp, larb and laap). I just had to try it, my friend suggested. I did and, like him, I was hooked. I have made it many times since and it is one of the family's favourite Thai dishes and particularly nice on a summer evening.

Laab can be made using minced beef, but I prefer chicken or pork. It's quick and easy to prepare, and you can make the sauce and salad while the meat is cooking.

There are a couple of ingredients in laab you may not be familiar with - lemon grass and kaffir lime leaves.

Lemon grass is generally available in Asian food stores, or you can grow your own. It looks a little like a spring onion but has a slightly woody texture. It should be fairly finely chopped, using only the bottom 10-12cms. Stalks can be bought and kept in the freezer, or you can buy jars of chopped lemon grass. Two tablespoons are the equivalent to one stalk.

Kaffir lime leaves (left) are dark, shiny green leaves with a pronounced limey lemon flavour. They come in pairs and are usually thinly sliced before use. I buy mine fresh and keep them in the freezer. They are also available dried.

Roasted ground rice is an integral part of this dish. Dry roast half a cup of short-grain white rice in a frying pan until it is a golden brown colour and then grind in a mortar, or in a coffee grinder, until it is a powder. (I keep a separate coffee grinder specially for grinding spices and herbs). Store in an airtight jar.

Thai Pork Salad

400g lean minced pork
1 stalk of lemon grass, thinly sliced
a large red chilli, deseeded and finely chopped
4 kaffir lime leaves, thinly shredded
6 tablespoons lemon juice
3 tablespoons Thai fish sauce
3 spring onions, chopped diagonally into small pieces
fresh coriander
1 tablespoon roasted ground rice
mixed salad greens
cucumber
tomatoes

Heat about quarter of a cup of water in a frying pan and add the pork, breaking it up with a wooden spatula. Turn it once or twice during cooking. It will take about 10 minutes to cook (1). Most of the water will evaporate during this time.

Meanwhile measure out the lemon juice and fish sauce and chop the lemon grass, chilli and lime leaves, the coriander and the spring onions (2).

Place the salad greens in a large shallow dish or a bowl, and decorate the edges with tomato wedges and cucumber slices.

When the meat has cooled down stir through the liquid, the other chopped ingredients and the ground rice, and spoon the meat onto the lettuce. Garnish with sprigs of mint and a few whole coriander leaves (3).

The fish sauce is salty so you shouldn't need any salt to season.