I'm quite the novice cook, and I love trying new recipes out on my husband. I was watching The Food Network yesterday and caught Giada de Laurentis' cooking show. The episode centered around her husbands favorite foods, one of them being a traditional Thai dish called Larb. Having nothing else to do but study the etiology behind personality disorders and defense mechanisms, I ran straight to the grocery store to grab the needed ingredients.
I followed the recipe exactly (I can't go rogue and just throw in random stuff, it always is a disaster when I do that) and it turned out wonderful! My husband loved it so much, he ate pretty much the entire thing. I thought I'd share the recipe with you guys.
Making Thai food can sound intimidating, I know that's the reason I've avoided many ethnic foods. Some of the more foreign spices and sauces can be hard to track down and nearly impossible to substitute successfully. This recipe made it so easy and my local grocery store had everything I needed!
So without further ado, the
recipe:
Ingredients
For Dressing:
1/3 cup fresh lime juice (from approx. 5 limes)
3 tbs fresh lemon juice
2 tbs fish sauce
2 tbs honey
Larb:
3 tbs vegetable or canola oil
1/2 red onion, diced (I used white onion bc I prefer it)
3 shallots, thinly sliced
1 piece lemongrass, minced
1 Thai or Serrano chile (I used 2 for a little extra heat), thinly sliced
Kosher salt to taste
1.5 lbs ground turkey (recipe calls for dark meat, but we used fat free breast meat)
1/2 cup chopped fresh mint leaves
Black pepper to taste
1 head butter lettuce, leaves washed and separated
Steamed white rice
Directions
In a small bowl, whisk together the lime and lemon juice, the fish sauce, and the honey. Set aside.
In a large skillet, heat the oil over medium heat (I used medium-high). Add onion, shallot, lemongrass, chilis and salt to taste. Allow the vegetables to cook until softened, roughly 5 minutes. Add the turkey and season with salt/pepper. Cook until the meat and vegetables are cooked through, stirring frequently. Again, roughly 5 minutes. Add the dressing to the pan and cook for 2 minutes. *Here, I turned up the heat a bit so the dressing would really cook into the dish, but that's optional, of course. Remove pan from heat and stir in the fresh mint.
The dish is meant to be spooned into the lettuce leaves and arranged on a serving platter. I found it more appealing to arrange the lettuce leaves around the platter, put the steamed white rice in the middle, and pour the Larb on top of the white rice. This allows people to take their lettuce leaf and fill it up themselves - and also keeps the lettuce from getting soggy or slimy if they sit for a minute.
I linked the recipe above, but here it is
again. I did a lot of the prep work early so that all I had to do once my husband got home was throw everything in a pan.
And here's the finished product. There isn't much color contrast to the dish because I used the white breast meat. I think this recipe could be great also with ground beef or ground tofu!
