Larb – Thai Pork Salad

Larb is a Thai dish that typically is made with one of the following meats; beef, chicken, pork, fish, and typically uses fish sauce, and chili peppers. I have been making this one for a few years now, and trust me, it is killer. I made this as a simple snack while my sister-n-law was in town and it rocked her socks off. Heck, it even knocks my socks off every time I make it. This is another simple recipe.

Ingredients:

• Ground Pork (use whatever meat you want, finely chopped, or ground)
• Toasted Rice, ground rice
• Fish Sauce
• Chopped Onion or shallot
• Fresh Mint Leaves
• Thai Chili Peppers
• Lime Juice

The first thing I do is heat a skillet and add about 1/2 to 1 cup of white rice. That’s right, uncooked, white rice. What we are doing her is toasting the rice. You want to cook this rice, moving it ever couple of minutes, for about ten minutes. Careful not to burn the rice, so keep your eye on it. Once the rice is browned, place it into a bowl and off the skillet to prevent it from cooking further. Once cooled, you will want to grind this. You can do this a couple of ways, use a mortar and pestle, or use a coffee bean grinder. 🙂 Grind to a medium to fine blend. Get ready to cook the meat and other ingredients.

Heat a large pan or wok. Once warmed up, add the ground pork and cook through. When the pork is almost done cooking, add about 2 TB of fish sauce, chopped onion, chopped up thai peppers (I use about 8 chopped up chilis as I love spicy food), and 1 TB of lime juice, and the crushed rice. Let this cook over medium for a minute or two. Add about 5 TB of chopped, fresh mint. Toss, place in a bowl and seriously, eat it from there, or serve with cooked white rice, or even better, sticky rice.