Sawaddee ka welcome to hot Thai kitchen today I am making a new and improved video for laab
and laab is a very well-known North Eastern dish that's basically a salad made up of ground meat
and lots of fresh herbs it's really refreshing perfect for the summer now last time when I made
this years ago I used pork but today I'm going to show you how to make it with chicken because I've
got lots of people asking me hey I want to make laab chicken is there anything I need to know are
there any tricks so we're going to tackle all of that today let's get started so the heart
of laab is toasted rice powder or what we call cow kuat now cow is rice and kua means to sort of dry
toast something in a pan which is exactly what we're going to do so what I've got here is some
sticky rice okay raw uncooked sticky rice if you don't have sticky rice you can also just do this
with jasmine rice it'll work just as well but this is sort of traditional cuz sticky rice is the main
rice eaten in the Northeast and now what I'm going to do differently this time is instead of toasting
the rice naked I'm going to also throw in a kaffir lime leaf for this amount just oneness okay some
people also add pieces of lemon grass or galangal and allow it to toast with their rice now you want
to make sure you stir this all the time so the toasting is even okay and it's going to smoke a
lot don't worry it's normal and that looks good I'm gonna turn that off so you want the color to
be a nice deep brown not light golden brown here you want some color on it cuz that's how you're
gonna get a nice toasty nutty aroma add it to the salad I'm going to transfer this into my morton
pestle or you can use a coffee grinder if you want you can also see how crispy that leaf is
and you can actually grind that up together mmm so good if you're using a coffee grinder just
be careful you don't over grind it until it's a complete powder you still want a little bit of
a grittiness to it hmm the stuff is so magical all right there's that so just one little thing
before we get cooking is the chili flakes oh this is actually really important lab never uses fresh
chilies always dry like these and always roast it or toast it so these are not toasted you see
they're bright and red all I do is i roast this in the oven for a few minutes I'll include all
the specifics in the written recipe and I also throw in a lime leaf in the oven too when i
roast it just like the toast with rice powder and then I grind it up in a coffee grinder or
a mortar and pestle and it gives me really nice and a little bit smoky with that citrusy flavor
from the lime leaves that is good chili flakes all right time to grind our chicken now I don't
like to use commercially ground chicken for this you can but I find that they grind it too fine and
a lot of times it's way too lean so what I like to do is I've got 50% chicken thigh and I include the
fat because that's going to help sort of make it a little juicy because we're not adding any added
oil or anything at all and then the other half is chicken breasts and I think that's the nice
combination between fattiness and flavor and also the tenderness from the chicken breast so
I'm going to grind this using a cleaver which is something every household in Thailand does is very
common I grew up doing this ever since I was like a tiny tiny little kid and you just chop chop chop
so after you first go at it what I like to do is just flip it because a lot of times your
knife doesn't cut all the way through so if you flip it and cut it from the other side you sort
of you know you get it you get everything and then you can change the knife angle this way all
right so we're good to go so this is actually a one-pot dish we're gonna cook the chicken in here
and then this becomes essentially the salad bowl which is what I love just a couple tablespoons of
water here if you've got some unsalted chicken stock go ahead and use that it's better so the
technique we're using here is there's a special word for that in Thai and it's called good one
and one just means cooking something just in a pan with a little bit of oil or water like this
until it's done and the water is really just there to lubricate the pan I'm going to add the chicken
and one it and so what I'm going to do which is just my trick not everyone does is I'm going to
add just a little bit of fish sauce to the chicken right now and it's just to season it you know you
want to season it during and after so that the the flavor isn't just on the outside and the dressing
but also inside the meat keep stirring it you want to keep stirring it because you don't want it to
clump up together in a big chunk and also note that I am using a large ish pan if I crowd a small
pot it's going to trap a lot of water inside and then you end up with too much liquid if you use
a large pan the water can evaporate and you don't end up diluting your dressing okay that's it I'm
going to turn that off okay so now while this is still quite hot I'm going to add shallots thinly
sliced shallots and the heat of the chicken is going to help will the shallot and now I'm going
to go in with the seasoning so fish sauce and lime juice and that's it fish sauce and lime juice no
sugar whatsoever in-lap that's why you really need to have the toasted rice powder because
the toasted rice sort of the nuttiness of that will balance the sharp acidity and the saltiness
of the lime juice and the fish sauce so if you don't have that it's really a little bit abrasive
my toasted rice powder I will tell you one thing don't add this if you're not planning to serve
this right away because the toasted rice will sort of absorb all the liquid and just sort of swell up
but I'm gonna eat this right away so I can just go ahead and put it in and I like a lot you can
put as much or as little as you like but I like a lot mmm Oh as soon as you add that it smells like
love like instantly okay now some chili flakes this tends to be a spicy dish so don't be shy
salivating so now we're going to add the delicate herbs okay and the delicate herbs you want to add
later at the end because now it's not as hot so I'm going to go in with the green onions now this
is sawtooth coriander now sawtooth coriander is an iconic herb to add to lab it's sort of the flavor
sort of a cross between mint and cilantro it's really unique however it's not always easy to find
Vietnamese stores will have it so if you've got a Vietnamese grocery store nearby check them out if
you don't have it cilantro will work you can do both cilantro and / with coriander if you'd like
or one or the other a lot of times people will serve this on the side so you can sort of munch on
it ask your eating lab as well okay this is your first time making it make sure you give it a taste
hey I made this recipe so many times I know if isn't gonna be good alright so I've got some fresh
vegetables we always serve lab with lots of fresh veggies because this is really neat heavy right as
you can see and it's also really strong flavor so the vegetables help mellow it out in addition to
giving some freshness I know what you're thinking some of you are thinking but pile in where's the
mint the mint is like the most important thing here well I discover that it's better especially
if you're not going to eat it right away to put the mint on the outside because mint turns black
really quickly when it's exposed to heat so if you put it on the outside it'll look nicer and
then when you go to eat it you just mix it in as you eat it what's a classic garnish is we put a
couple of dried chilies on top and also what I'm going to do is I'm going to add some crunchiness
to it and that is crispy chicken skin so I have a video on how to make your own crispy chicken
skin I actually came up with with the method and basically I use the skin from the chicken that I
use for the lab so I'm just going to add a couple of pieces on top it's just extra crispy chicken
nests so you gotta have sticky rice with this okay I've got some ready to go in the bag which I'll
reheat and eat after we're done here but it goes really well with laughs now the way I like to eat
it is sort of as a lettuce wrap type thing and I actually really like having it with this Belgian
on d4 and I've however you like to call it it's like this nature's perfect spoon you don't have to
do anything to it it's just this perfect little cup mmm it is the most refreshing bright zingy
chicken salad you will ever have others everything is in such good balance to saltiness with a fish
sauce and tart lime juice and even though we didn't add any sugar just sort of the natural
sweetness of the chicken and the toastiness of the toasted rice powder just brings everything
to a really really yummy place and vegetables really really important in this oh this is so good
I can just keep going but anyway I got to get my sticky rice heated up so I can properly sit down
and devour this thing so the recipe SOA Fujian has Thai Kitchen comm when you make it send me a photo
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