Larb Gai (Thai minced chicken salad)

Ingredients:

500gm ground chicken

1/4 cup water, (if necessary) 

4 large (56g) shallots, peeled and finely sliced lengthwise

1 tablespoon store-bought or homemade toasted rice powder (see notes)

Fish sauce, or to taste

Lime juice, or to taste

Ground dried red pepper, to taste

½ cup (4g) coarsely-chopped coriander leaves

1/2 cup (8g) mint leaves

Instructions:

In a skillet over medium heat, saute the chicken until cooked through. (Don’t use high heat; you don’t want to brown the chicken.) There should be some juice in the pan. If it gets too dry, add some water to the pan up to ½ cup.

Once the chicken is done, take the pan off the heat and immediately add the shallots; toss to wilt the shallots.

Start out by adding 1 tablespoon of fish sauce and 1 tablespoon of lime juice. Toss everything together well, and taste to see if you like how it tastes. If not, add more fish sauce and/or lime juice until the salad tastes right to you. (For this recipe, I use 2 tablespoons of fish sauce and 4 tablespoons of lime juice.)

Add the toasted rice powder; toss.

Add about one teaspoon of dried chilli powder to the mix and taste. I usually add 1 tablespoon, but that may be too much for some of you.

Once the taste is where you want your larb to be, mix in the mint leaves and cilantro Serve.