Minced Chicken and Prawn Laap with Herbs, Roasted Rice and Baby Gem

Laap comes from northeast Thailand, a region that has absorbed more from Lao culture than from anywhere else. The dish carries that history in it: brought over through migration, absorbed into the Isan food tradition, and made into something entirely its own, which is what Thai food does better than almost any other cuisine. This version uses chicken mince with the offal: kidneys, liver and hearts, all minced together and cooked as one. Most people don't cook with chicken hearts. They should. Dense, mineral, with a texture that takes on heat from the wok brilliantly, they add something breast meat cannot. This has been on the menu at Farang more than once. The toasted rice powder at the end is not a garnish. It holds the dish together.

Minced Chicken and Prawn Laap with Herbs, Roasted Rice and Baby Gem

Serves: 2 | Prep: 20 mins | Cook: 40 mins

Ingredients

For the paste:

• 4 red bird's eye chillies, stems removed (use 2 for less heat)

• 6 garlic cloves, peeled

• 20g ginger, peeled and roughly chopped

• 1/2 teaspoon coarse sea salt

For the laap:

• 3 tablespoons vegetable oil

• 100g minced chicken, with kidneys, liver and hearts minced in (mince all the meat together)

• 100g prawns, shells and heads removed, de-veined and minced with a cleaver

• 1 tablespoon coriander root, washed and chopped (available attached to the leaves in most good Asian supermarkets; leave out if you cannot find it)

• 1 teaspoon palm sugar

• 2 tablespoons fish sauce

• 1 tablespoon thick tamarind water

• Juice of 1 lime

• 8 Thai shallots, peeled and sliced (banana shallots work well too)

• 2 apple aubergines, each cut into 6 pieces (optional)

• 1 tablespoon long red chillies, toasted whole in a dry pan until crispy and charred throughout

To finish:

• 10g coriander leaves, picked and washed

• 10g mint leaves, picked and torn

• 10g Thai basil, picked

• 10 pak chi farang (Thai flat-leaf coriander), optional

For the toasted rice powder:

• 50g jasmine rice

To serve:

• 1 head baby gem lettuce, core removed, leaves washed and dried

• Lime cheeks

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Method

1. Start with the rice. Heat the oven to 180°C. Spread the jasmine rice in a single layer across a baking tray and roast for 35 to 40 minutes until every grain is golden brown all the way through. Leave to cool completely, then grind to a fine powder in a spice grinder or with a pestle and mortar. It has to be fine. Coarse grains will ruin the texture of the finished dish. Set aside.

2. Pound the bird's eye chillies, garlic, ginger and sea salt together in a pestle and mortar until you have a rough paste. The salt acts as an abrasive and helps bring everything together. A food processor works if you don't have a mortar, but you lose some of the fragrance.

3. Heat a large wok over a high heat and add the vegetable oil. When it shimmers, add the paste and coriander root and keep everything moving for 2 to 3 minutes until the paste is deeply fragrant and beginning to catch at the edges of the pan. This is where the base of the dish is built.

4. Add the minced chicken with all the offal and the minced prawns. Break up any clumps with a spatula and fry through, keeping it moving, until the meat is cooked and hot throughout: about 6 to 8 minutes.

5. Add the palm sugar and cook for a further minute until the mixture begins to darken and caramelise at the edges. Add the fish sauce, tamarind water and lime juice and toss together. Taste: the laap should be salty, sour and hot, with heat building underneath. Add more fish sauce if it needs salt, more lime if it needs lifting.

6. Take the wok off the heat. Add the Thai shallots, apple aubergines, all the herbs and the roasted dried chillies. Toss together well and serve immediately. This dish will not wait.

7. Lay the baby gem leaves across the plate, spoon the laap over and around them, dust generously with toasted rice powder and add lime cheeks on the side. It eats well on its own or with sticky glutinous rice alongside.

Chef's notes

The chicken hearts are the most important part. Cheap, available from most good butchers and Asian supermarkets, and they bring a dense, mineral quality that breast meat cannot replicate. If you cannot find hearts, kidneys alone will still add depth. Leaving the offal out altogether makes it a different dish.

If you cannot find apple aubergines, leave them out. They add a mild bitterness that works well against the heat but the laap stands without them.

The toasted rice powder can be made in advance and kept in an airtight container for up to a week. Worth making a larger batch while the oven is on.

If you enjoy Thai salads built on the same balance of salty, sour and hot, the Grilled Aubergine Salad is worth trying next.

This recipe is from Cook Thai, published by Kyle Books, photography by Tom Regester.

This recipe was also published by The Daily Mail.

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