Akaraporn "Kara" Sakhakorn
Larb is made with aromatic herbs, like mint, dill, and shallot, to induce mild sweating to cool the body during the summer. The ground dry-fried rice is used to help improve digestion. The sour taste from the lime helps to cleanse the Liver and raise your energy level.
Larb is often made with different meats depending on your health condition. For example, you can use ground organic chicken, grilled fish, mushroom combination, or even tofu.
Chicken is used for people who feel fatigued, or suffer from physical injury.
Fish is good if you want a lighter, lower calorie meal.
A combination of mushrooms is used for their anti-viral properties and to cleanse the Liver. I recommend wood-ear, oyster, portabella, and button mushrooms.
Cooking with herbs is a great way to maintain your health, balance your body, and satisfy your taste buds!
Preparation Time: 30 minutes
Ingredients
1 lb ground chicken or pork (or grill chicken/ pork/ beef; thin slices)
1 shallot; sliced (or 2 tablespoon sliced red onion)
2 green onions; chopped
1⁄2 cup mint leaves
2 tablespoon chopped dill
3 tablespoons roasted sticky rice powder; “khao koor” dry fry sticky rice
until golden brown and then use coffee glider to make into a powder.
2 tablespoons ground chili (vary to your taste)
1 lime (juice) (vary to your taste)
2-3 tablespoons fish sauce (vary to your taste)
1⁄4 red or green bell pepper; thin sliced (optional)
Lettuce or salad mixed (as garnish)
Preparation
- Use a medium size pot/pan. Start with small amount of water, and begin to cook the ground meat. The meat will stick to the pan at first, but the meat juice will come out later. You can keep adding small amounts of water a little bit at the time. Keep stirring until the meat is cooked well. Then turn the stove off.
- Add fish sauce, chili, and roasted sticky rice. Taste and adjust until salty and spicy enough.
- Add green onion, shallot, dill, red bell pepper and mint leaves. Then squeeze lime on top of all the ingredients and mix well.
- Serve with lettuce or a salad mix as the base on the plate.
If you need to add more fish sauce or lime-juice, don’t be afraid. Getting the flavor balance right is a trial and error process.
However, you need to keep in mind that you shouldn’t add fish sauce after you already squeeze the lime to avoid the unpleasant smell from fish sauce, so make sure that the food is already salty enough!
Baptist Hospital Top Chef 2010 Winner