lao kitchen
By Rachael
Luang Prabang, Laos
Cooking is a very simple affair here. Early every morning a huge batch of sticky rice is cooked up and put in a bamboo container, where it stays until it is needed. On their way out to work and school everyone grabs a handful, flattens it out and dollops on some chilli paste or fish paste or salt and rolls it into a ball to nibble on (or they might have noodle soup).
Lunch is more of the same, perhaps with a steamed fish and some vegetables. And guess what’s for dinner! While it’s likely there will be sticky rice, there might be noodles and there will definitely be chillies. In between these meals there could be snacks of noodles or fresh fruit or sticky rice and chillies!
I’ve had a good snoop around the “kitchen”, and even though I had watched the food preparations day by day and noticed almost all ingredients were fresh, I was still surprised when I checked out the “pantry” (or perhaps I should call it a “provisions basket”, which sits on a bench just outside the front door that’s where the food is prepared – yes, that would be on the ground, beside the fire, about ten metres away from the hose – remember there’s no sink, just a concrete drain…see why I put the word kitchen in speech marks?) So what was in that pantry-basket?
bottle of fish sauce
bottle of soy sauce
bottle of hot chilli sauce
bottle of vinegar
bottle of oil
bag of salt
bag of sugar
jar of dried fish
basket of dried chillies
2 limes
That’s it folks. And to think we sometimes look in our overstocked cupboards and think there’s nothing there! With these ingredients and whatever is available at the market on any given day, all sorts of gourmet dishes are whipped up.
“Fur” is one of our favourites…..(koay tau in Thai, noodle soup in English)
- *roast garlic and ginger in the fire until black, while water (or chicken stock) in the pot heats up
- *crush ginger and add with peeled garlic to pot
- *add one packet of chicken stock if you don’t have any fresh stock
- *after 10 minutes add hunks of pork and boil until cooked
- *remove pork, allow to cool a little and then chop very finely, set aside
- *chop coriander, chives and mint finely, and wash lettuce and watercress
- *heat noodles in boiling water and drain through bamboo colander, rinsing with fresh water (use both wide and thin noodles)
- *to serve, into a bowl place a few handfuls of lettuce, watercress and noodles ~ top with shredded pork ~ sprinkle over dried shallots, spice mix (not sure what was in this apart from chilli powder) and ground black pepper ~ pour over stock
- *season individual bowls to taste with chilli sauce, vinegar, soy sauce, chilli paste and sugar
- * eat with chillies dipped in chilli paste – rocket fuel!!!
tam som is another tasty salad snack we had one afternoon (som tum in Thai)…
- *chop and then using a mortar and pestle, rind to a pulp: lime juice, tomatoes, chillies, garlic, salt
- *peel a papaya, then cut slits into it lengthwise and “shave” those shredded bits off (I guess that’s what you do when you don’t have a grater)
- *add to above and pound some more (oh, and remember you’re doing this outside on the ground, perhaps perching on a little stool if you don’t want to squat)
- *thinly slice off the rest of the papaya and add to above with a splash of fish sauce (in my opinion, less, rather than more sauce is better!)
- *pound a bit more, turning over with a Chinese spoon
Delicious dishes come out of a kitchen, which has no oven, no food processor, no tupperware, no fridge, no microwave, no electric knife (no electric anything, actually), no wine glasses, no pyrex, no rolling pin, no crockpot, no yoghurt maker….not even a kitchen bench. So what *IS* in a Lao “kitchen”?
fire container
water pot
soup pot
wok
tongs for moving (soot-blackened) pots
bamboo rice steamer and lid
bamboo colander
sticky rice baskets (a few different sizes)
serious chopping board
mortar and pestle
knives
wooden spoon/stick
ladle
fish slice
wooden rice tray
bamboo woven tray for drying food on
buckets
bowls
chinese soup spoons
chopsticks
bamboo baskets for holding the smaller items
(the large ones just sit on the ground)
Tags: food, postcard: Laos
rayres
wow it’s going to be amazing to measure the culture shock when you’re travels start taking you back into western ‘civilisation’!!