Two spicy Thai salad recipes: fish and beef laaps

Chillies bring more than heat to Thai cooking. As these laap salads show, they play to regional strengths, awaken the mouth, lift other flavours, add aroma and nuance …

theguardian.com | Thursday 8 December 2016

Ben Chapman
Ben Chapman is a chef and cofounder of Kiln and Smoking Goat Thai restaurants in London; @Kilnsoho and @SmokingGoatSoho

On landing in Bangkok last year, restaurant manager Luke and I went straight to Khua Kling Pak Sod, tucked away on Thonglor Soi 5. Usually packed, this restaurant serves what’s described as authentic southern-style Thai food: that means spicy as hell and heavier on the coconut cream than the sour, pungent dishes from further north, which we touched upon last week.

We’re feeling intrepid as we order, which the waiter clearly notices, cocking his head as we choose the dishes.

First to arrive is the namesake khua kling, a dry pork-mince curry that’s fried hard in a hot wok with a type of small red chilli called prik kee noo suan. From a family of chillies that translates as “mouse-shit chillies” or, specifically in this case, “rat’s turd”, they have an, err, knobbled appearance – small and relatively innocent-looking. They could pass for the more typical Thai bird’s-eye varieties, but the small plate of curry in front of us is fiercely hot. For us farangs (foreigners) dumped here via the flavour vacuum that is long-haul air travel, this is a potentially lethal dosage.

As I eyeball the nuclear hum that the khua kling emits, Luke dives straight in and scoops up a mouthful: whole chillies, stalks and all. Well, we’re in this together now, I think, following his lead. It’s spicy – sharp and laser-like – but that doesn’t stop us going back for more. That’s the thing with smaller fresh chillies – they burn bright for a short time, then you want more. Combined with the sweetness of palm sugar and rich umami of fermented shrimp, the dish’s heat is balanced. Nonetheless, when a bowl of coconut soup – bai leang tom kati – arrives, we are extremely thankful. It’s a fragrant antidote to the heat but also, we notice, something that tastes all the better for being eaten with a hot dish. The “rat’s turd” awakened our mouths to every single herbal, salty detail in the neighbouring dishes. Chilli heat lifts other flavours around it.

The chillies described here are prized for being hot, but that is just the start of the story. In the world of small, hot chillies, you have green (white-peppery) and red (fruity) bird’s-eyes, which you will be familiar with, while the chillies typical to Laos are lemony and sourly fruity, and the small Yunnanese bell-shaped chillies are extremely hot and floral. Each variety has not only a different level of heat but a different flavour.

As you eat your way around Thailand, you start to notice how the chillies more typical of the region in which you’re travelling affect the style of cooking. The very hot chillies you see in areas that border Laos tend to be used to create lighter, more herbal dishes. A good example is the Laos-style fish laap recipe below.

Dried chillies tend to deliver their heat more slowly. That heat will last much longer in your mouth. While they’re the basis for most curry pastes, I tend to think of dried chillies as principally aromatic. Try toasting dried chilli lightly before using it – you’ll notice how richly perfumed it can be.

The beef salad recipe below relies on dried chilli and is a northern Thai-style laap, made with warming dry spices such as cumin and mahkwean (a relative of Szechuan pepper). The beef should be chopped by hand with a little offal and then very gently fried in oil with the lemongrass and a whole dried chilli. I suggest you serve it loosened with a little stock; this soupy style brings forward the heady, tonic-like quality of toasted spices and offally meat. Quite opposite in style, these two laaps demonstrate the differing uses of chilli between Thai regions.

Laos-style fish laap

Be careful not to overwork the fish or the herbs or it will all be a little sodden. The sweetness comes from the deep-fried lemongrass and shallot rather than sugar, and the result is a restrained but balanced dish where the heat of fresh chilli amplifies the fresh fish and any herbs you are using.

Serves 4
2 stalks lemongrass, inner parts very finely sliced (reserve outer parts to flavour cooking water)
4 garlic cloves, peeled and roughly diced
4 Thai shallots, peeled and roughly diced (or banana shallots if you can’t find the small Thai type)
Vegetable oil
400g large flaky white fish – hake is ideal

For the salad
2 bird’s-eye chillies (red and green), very finely sliced
2 handfuls mint leaves, roughly sliced
1 handful Vietnamese mint or laksa leaves (optional), roughly sliced
2 shallots or a red onion, sliced

For the dressing
4 tbsp fish sauce or pla raa (fermented freshwater fish), if you can find it
4 tbsp fresh lime juice

To garnish
2 fresh makrut lime leaves, finely sliced, any stalks and trimmings reserved for flavourings (optional)
1 stalk lemongrass, outer leaves reserved for flavourings, inner parts very finely sliced

1 Gently fry the lemongrass, garlic and shallot until golden brown in vegetable oil. Discard and start again if bitter – you don’t want to overcook it. Drain on kitchen paper.

2 Get a small pan of water to a rolling boil. Add the lemongrass outer stalks and any trimmings from the makrut lime leaves to the water and gently boil the fish until cooked (2-3 minutes).

3 Set aside the fish and retain 1 tbsp of the boiling liquid.

4 Add the fish and salad ingredients to a large mixing bowl. Combine the fish sauce, reserved cooking liquor and lime juice to make a dressing and add this to the mixing bowl. Toss to coat all the ingredients without breaking up the fish too much.

5 Plate and add the garnishes.

Chiang Mai-style beef laap

Serves 4
350g beef (a cheaper steak cut such as skirt or featherblade is ideal)
50g beef kidney
1 garlic clove
Vegetable oil, for frying
1 large whole dry chilli
300ml light beef stock
15g palm sugar (or caster sugar)
30ml fish sauce
30ml fresh lime juice

For the laap powder
1 tsp small red dried chilli, toasted
2 tsp long red dried chilli, toasted
1 tsp cumin, toasted
1 tsp white peppercorn, toasted
1 tsp coriander seed, toasted

For the salad
2 handfuls mint leaves, roughly sliced
1 handful Vietnamese mint or laksa leaves (optional), roughly sliced
4 spring onion bulbs, smashed
2 stalks lemongrass, inner parts very finely sliced (reserve outer parts to flavour oil above)

1 Use a cleaver to chop the beef into rough dice, then chop through the kidney and the garlic clove.

2 Blitz the laap powder ingredients with a spice grinder or crush with a pestle and mortar into a fine powder.

3 Heat a little vegetable oil in a deep frying pan or wok. Add the lemongrass outer leaves and the dry chilli.

4 When the oil is bubbling, remove the lemongrass, gently add the meat and stir to brown it. Add your homemade laap powder to the pan and quickly stir.

5 Add your stock and allow the mixture to reduce by half. Then take it off the heat and lightly season with the palm sugar, fish sauce and lime juice.

6 Combine all the salad ingredients in a mixing bowl, then add to the pan. Quickly stir to warm through before heaping on plates to serve.

• Ben Chapman is a chef and founder of Kiln and Smoking Goat Thai restaurants in London; @Kilnsoho and @SmokingGoatSoho

 

Source : www.theguardian.com