Thai Pork Salad

This salad is known as laab (also seen as larp, larb and laap) and 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.