#32 Laos
- Jen
- Mar 15, 2021
- 4 min read
Updated: Jul 4, 2022
Laos was once known as The Kingdom of a Million Elephants. Sadly, it should now be called The Kingdom of 800 Elephants due to poaching and habitat loss.
I’ll move on to food before we all get too sad.
How exciting to come back to this region only four countries after Indonesia!
South-east Asian flavours are my fave. It’s fresh, crunchy, zingy, herbalicious goodness! Ingredients with contrasting tastes are paired so that every bite is a flavour explosion. Every dish is a careful balance of hot, sour, salty and sweet. A small amount of training is required to be able to taste through the hot to begin with but once you’ve got the hang of it, the chilli in that papaya salad no longer blows your head off but provides a wonderful dimension to the dish, and you realise that the hot is just as important as the sweet. Yum!
Even though I’ve never been to Laos, or (knowingly*) had any Laotian food, I already know I’m going to love it!
*After writing this, I discovered that there are more ethnic Lao in the Isan region of north-east Thailand than in Laos itself and Thailand has created their own versions of many Laotian dishes and passed them off as their own, so I may have experienced Laos cooking after all!
Children of the sticky rice
This is what Laotians refer to themselves as. As long as they’re not the Children of the Corn, I’m happy because that film was TERRIFYING!
Sticky rice is life for Laotians. It can feature at breakfast, lunch or dinner and can be served solo or in balls and used to scoop up sauces.
Padaek, the local fish sauce, is made from fermented fish from the Mekong River, typically includes whole chunks of fish and is the essence of Laotian cuisine. Other flavours common to many dishes are lemongrass, ginger and plenty of fresh herbs.
A few popular Laotian dishes
Laap is the national dish and is a cold meat ‘salad’ of minced chicken, beef, duck or pork with fresh herbs and chilli and can be eaten raw or cooked. A key ingredient is toasted rice powder (made by dry-frying rice and grinding to a powder) which gives it a nuttiness. It’s also mixed with fish sauce, lime juice and loads of fresh herbs. This is one of the examples of Thailand stealing Laos’ ideas but Thai laap typically has less fresh herbs.
It is so quick and easy to make: stir-fry pork mince, add toasted rice powder, fish sauce, lime juice, sugar, chillies, shallots, spring onions, coriander and mint. Job done. I had mine warm with jasmine rice, but you could have it in little lettuce leaf cups if it was a starter rather than a main. So fresh, so predictably delicious.
Paeng pet translates as ‘duck blood salad’ and this is not a symbolic name but an accurate description of the dish: herbs, spring onions, chillies, peanuts, fresh, raw duck blood, lime and fish sauce. Apparently it’s delicious.
There’s no apparently about this one, tam som, or green papaya salad, is delicious. A classic papaya salad is made of unripe papaya, which isn’t as sweet as a ripe papaya, pounded and usually mixed with lime (sour), chilli (hot), fish sauce (salty) and palm sugar (sweet). Other shredded vegetables are usually included for some crunch. The dish is common to neighbouring Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam, but it originated in Laos, and is same same but different between countries. For example, Thai papaya salad does not include fish sauce.
Jaew can refer to any type of dip, usually a smoky-flavoured grilled vegetable dip pounded into a paste with chilli, garlic and fish sauce. The bashing really brings out all of the flavours to make it strongly tasting. Jaew ma-keua is one of the most popular and is made with aubergine. Another favourite is jaew bong, which includes dried buffalo skin.
Laos was a French colony for a while and as a result, Laotians have become rather partial to a baguette. Khao jee pate is similar to the Vietnamese banh mee, in that it’s a very tasty baguette sandwich! In Laos, the baguette is sliced lengthways, slathered with pâté and stuffed with a load of veggies, Laotian sausage and chilli sauce.
Laos sausage is a pork sausage with all the flavourings that would make a sausage taste SE Asian: lemongrass, coriander, galangal, kaffir lime leave, chilli, coriander and not forgetting fish sauce.
Khao soi means “cut noodle”. Fresh wide rice noodles are served in a herbal broth and topped with a tomato/pork sauce kind of like a bolognaise. The magic of the pork sauce is fermented soy bean paste, mak tua nao. We should note, that although Japanese miso is also made from fermented soy beans, it’s completely different.
A light broth is made from simmering lemongrass, ginger, carrot, shallot, clove, coriander, vegetable oil and fish sauce to create a gently flavoured base for the punchy meat topping. The ingredients for the meat sauce are onion, shallots, garlic, ginger, minced pork, soy bean paste and tomatoes and the method is very similar to making a bolognaise.
To assemble: add cooked noodles and broth to a bowl, top with the meat and garnish with deep-fried crispy shallots, spring onions and fresh herbs. Have lime, chilli sauce and fish sauce to hand for seasoning to taste at the table. This was truly wonderful, particularly that pork sauce!
Have a look at this link for the recipe and a really interesting description of khao soi: http://somanymiles.com/2019/04/khao-soi-lao-rice-noodles/
I’ve had khao soi in Chaing Mai in Thailand and that was also amazing but quite different to the Laotian recipe I made in that there was no meat topping and it included coconut milk. Complete aside: I think this is the fourth noodle soup to date of Cook The World and it’s my absolute favourite to date.
Well that was tasty…PAPUA NEW GUINEA next!
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