Lao · Starter · Served at Mekong (#5 and #6)
Nam khao
Crispy coconut rice salad
Nam khao is a Lao crispy rice salad: fried coconut rice cakes broken up with sour pork sausage, peanuts, herbs, and lime, eaten wrapped in lettuce.
The sour sausage is naem or som moo. Vietnamese nem chua works if you can't find either.
Cook the rice the day before if you can. Fresh rice is too wet to fry crisp; if that's all you have, spread it on a sheet pan until the surface dries.
Notes
- I make Jeff Chanchaleune's recipe from Ma Der Lao Kitchen, and add about ½ tsp MSG each to the rice cakes and the dressing.
- Dress only when serving. Dressed early, the cakes go soft.
- Fry the cakes the day you eat them. The dressing, naem, and chopped herbs can sit in the fridge for a few hours.
What I use
- Sheet pan with a rack: Nordic Ware half sheet (opens in a new tab) (for drying the rice)
- Small sheet pan with a rack: Nordic Ware quarter sheet (opens in a new tab) (for draining the fried cakes so they stay crisp)
- Thermometer for frying oil: ThermoPro instant-read (opens in a new tab) (the cakes need a steady 350°F to go deep gold without burning)
- Spider for frying: Hiware stainless (opens in a new tab) (for lifting the cakes out of the oil)
- Red curry paste: Mae Ploy (opens in a new tab)
- Ground Thai chile: Dragonfly (opens in a new tab)
- MSG: Ajinomoto (opens in a new tab)
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