← Nouns Cooking · Thai

Ingredients

• 500 g pork neck or shoulder steaks
• 1 tbsp Fish sauce
• 1 tsp palm sugar or brown sugar
• ½ tsp Black pepper
• 1 tbsp Vegetable oil
• 2 tbsp raw sticky rice, for toasted rice powder
• 3 tbsp Fish sauce
• 3 tbsp lime juice
• 1 tsp palm sugar or brown sugar
• 2 tsp Thai chilli flakes, or to taste
• 3 Asian shallots, thinly sliced
• 1 handful mint leaves
• 1 handful Coriander (cilantro), roughly chopped
• 2 Spring onion, sliced
• ¼ Cabbage, cut into wedges (optional)
• 400 g sticky rice, steamed (optional)

Method

1. Rub the pork with the marinade ingredients and leave for 15 min (or up to a few hours in the fridge).
2. Toast the raw sticky rice in a dry pan over medium heat for 6–8 min, shaking often, until deep golden and nutty. Cool, then grind to a coarse powder in a mortar or spice grinder.
3. Grill or griddle the pork over high heat for 4–5 min per side, until charred outside and just cooked through (63°C / 145°F at the centre). Rest for 5 min, then slice thinly against the grain.
4. Put the warm pork and its juices in a bowl with the fish sauce, lime juice, sugar and chilli flakes and toss well.
5. Add the shallots, herbs, spring onion and 2 tbsp of the rice powder and toss again. Taste for sour, salty and hot, then serve with cabbage and sticky rice, with the extra rice powder on the side.

Tips

• The name means "waterfall", after the juices that drip from the grilling meat; use fatty neck or shoulder so it stays juicy.
• Make a jar of toasted rice powder; it keeps for weeks and is the key to laab too.

Sources

Written in our own words after cross-checking these recipes:

Rachel Cooks Thai Marion's Kitchen