I'm not really a summer person. Like, not at all. The heat and I are not friends. I wondered if my move to a significantly colder climate might make me change my mind, but it doesn't look as though that'll be happening any time soon... There are however, a few positive things that go along with the rise in temperature. This salad is one of them. As soon as the weather begins to heat up, my yearning for all things hearty dissipates (it never disappears completely, but it certainly wanes), and I start craving light, fresh meals. This one is a winner. I feel as though I should be giving credit to someone for the recipe, but I don't know who it is! I've made this quite a few times, and have taken ideas from a bunch of recipes I've found online, tweaking a little each time. This time, I didn't use a recipe.
Larb Gai
Ingredients:
Olive oil
2 tbsp white rice
500g chicken mince
2 tbsp fish sauce
2 limes
4 spring onions
Lebanese cucumber
Small handful of sugar snap peas
Red chillies
Mint leaves
Method:
Start off by toasting the rice in a frypan (without oil) until golden.
Next, grind up the rice (I used my pretendomix, but a mortar and pestle would work too), until is it not quite a powder. You want it to still have some texture about it.
In a large pan, heat up a slurp of olive oil, and throw in the chicken mince. I minced mine myself because I wanted to make sure the meat was really lean -still trying to move that broken-knee-weight...
Let the mince cook for a couple of minutes, breaking it up with a spoon (or more appropriate utensil...any ideas? Potato masher maybe?), then add the fish sauce, and the juice from one of the limes.
While that is cooking through, chop up all of your crunchy bits! I used cucumber, sugar snap peas, chillies and spring onions. Bean sprouts are good too, but I forgot to buy them... Oh, and the mint too! Crucial!
Check on your chicken, when it's done, stir through all the crunchy deliciousness (including your mint and ground rice). Serve with a wedge of lime.
Just try to stop at one bowl! I don't believe it can be done!
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