My introduction to Thai food was via a restaurant located first in Nashua, New Hampshire, and later in my home town of Merrimack, called Bangkok Oriental Cuisine, run by Mowl Wolfe, a Bangkok native. One of the chefs at this restaurant was Muoi Khuntilanont, the wife of ex-patriot British Colonel Ian Philpott, who was at the time a systems engineer for Digital Equipment Corporation (aka DEC, my employer). DEC's internal corporate network at that time boasted DEC NOTES, the granddaddy of the forum software that we use for WLDG and FLDG today. I was co-moderator of the Cooks Notes Conference on DEC's corporate network, a forum very similar to FLDG. Col. Philpott contributed many of his wife's Thai recipes to that forum.
Bangkok Oriental Cuisine rated the heat of their dishes on a scale from 0-3 flames. I was a big fan of the 2-flame dishes. Only two dishes rated three flames. One day I decided to try one of them--Lab Nur. This is sort of the Thai equivalent of steak tartare. It is a mixture of finely minced raw beef and Thai spices and herbs, including incendiary quantities of ground red chiles. Mowl told me not to worry--the dish came with a soup to soothe the palate in case the main course was too hot. I knew I was in trouble when the soup arrived and it had a whole red Thai bird chile floating in it. The Lab Nur itself was an experience in hotness I'll never forget.
Here we have Lab (or laab, or larb, or laap) Kai--Chicken Salad as opposed to beef. The meat is again minced or chopped fine, but due to the danger of salmonella and friends that one has with chicken, it is lightly cooked rather than served raw. This is Muoi Knuntilanont's recipe as relayed to the Internet by Col. Philpott. You can make this with raw boneless, skinless chicken, or with cooked chicken. Tonight I used leftovers from the Volcano Chicken I made last week.
The fire power for this dish is the ground dried red chiles. I used 6 teaspoons and it was hot enough to get me sweating, without being inedibly hot. Traditionally this is served with chile-containing condiments, so individual diners can adjust the heat up if they wish. Thai sticky (glutinous) rice is a great heat-quencher. The other traditional accompaniment is various shredded raw vegetables such as radishes or carrots. Use whatever you wish, or have at hand.
LAB KAI (Thai Spicy Ground Chicken Salad)
4 ounces of boneless, skinless raw (or cooked) chicken, minced fine
2-3 TBS lime juice
2-3 TBS chicken stock
2-3 TBS fish sauce
4-6 tsp ground dried hot red chiles (ground cayenne pepper works just fine)
1 TBS ground toasted rice (see below)
3-4 shallots, peeled and chopped fine
half a stalk of lemon grass, sliced very thinly across the grain
1 kaffir lime leaf, shredded very fine (or 1 tsp grated lime zest)
1-2 scallions, sliced across the grain into very thin rounds
1 tsp powdered dried galangal, or the equivalent amount of finely minced fresh galangal
Lettuce leaves (I use Boston lettuce), parsley, cilantro, and/or sliced radish for the garnish
Steamed Thai sticky rice, jasmine rice, or plain long-grained rice (in order of authenticity)
Papaya and basil are other traditional garnishes.
1. Line a serving dish with the lettuce leaves.
2. The traditional old-school Thai method is to mince the chicken meat using two very sharp cleavers. A meat grinder or food processor is a lot less work for the same result. Something a bit coarser than your supermarket ground meat is OK here, especially if you're starting with cooked meat.
3. If you're using raw chicken, heat a tiny amount of oil to high heat in a wok and stir-fry the chicken until it just starts to turn whitish.
4. Add all remaining ingredients. If you're using cooked chicken, start here and just dump everything in all at once. Stir until heated through and the chicken is cooked.
5. Serve on the bed of lettuce leaves and garnish to your taste. Serve it with sticky rice, mixed raw fresh vegetables, and Thai table condiments (if you wish).
GROUND TOASTED RICE: Place raw jasmine or other rice in a small saucepan or skillet over high heat. Shake the skillet continuously. The rice is done when it's dancing around a bit, is whitish (as opposed to translucent) in color, and just starting to brown a bit. Let it cool, then grind it to a coarse powder using a mortar and pestle (if you want to be traditional) or a spice grinder (my preference, for convenience).
The traditional way to eat this is to form a small ball of sticky rice, use it to pick up a little lab, then to eat it with the raw veggies. Many Thais use a fork and spoon (which is my preference--sticky rice gets messy).
The acidity of the lime juice amplifies the heat of the ground chiles to make this quite incendiary.
You can also make this with pork (Lab Moo) or beef (Lab Nur), in which case you can use raw meat if you wish (I prefer my lab always to be cooked, even if that's not traditional).
-Paul W.