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I've been a bit busy planning an extended vacation and can't wait to take a few cooking lessons while I'm gone. I thought I'd try my hand at one or two dishes before I go.
Larp Gai is a favorite of ours at Thai restaurants, wrap it in a lettuce cup and its a great appetizer.
mise en place
1 pound ground chicken
½ cup water, if necessary (see instructions)
2 large shallots, peeled and finely sliced lengthwise
1 tablespoon store-bought or homemade toasted rice powder (see notes)
Fish sauce, or to taste
Lime juice, or to taste
Ground dried red pepper, to taste
½ cup whole cilantro leaves or coarsely-chopped sawtooth coriander leaves
⅓ cup mint leaves
directions
In a skillet over medium heat, saute the chicken until cooked through. (Don’t use high heat; you don’t want to brown the chicken.) There should be some juice in the pan. If it gets too dry, add some water to the pan up to ½ cup.Once the chicken is done, take the pan off the heat and immediately add the shallots; toss to wilt the shallots. Start out by adding 1 tablespoon of fish sauce and 1 tablespoon of lime juice. Toss everything together well, and taste to see if you like how it tastes. If not, add more fish sauce and/or lime juice until the salad tastes right to you. (For this recipe, I use 2 tablespoons of fish sauce and 4 tablespoons of lime juice.) Add the toasted rice powder; toss.Add about one teaspoon of dried chilli powder to the mix and taste. You can add up to 1 tablespoon, but that may be too much for some of you.Once the taste is where you want your larp to be, mix in the mint leaves and cilantro or culantro. Serve.Toast 1/2 cup (or less) of Thai sticky or glutinous rice (available at most asian markets) and toast it in a sauté pan over medium heat. Let it get golden but don't burn it. Through it in your spice grinder (or mortar) and grind to a fine powder.
* If you can't find toasted rice flour ( and I couldn't) you can make your own. It's easy if you have a spice grinder. I have a coffee grinder marked for spices only.
. This exotic ingredient isn't really that exotic. It shows up on the ingredient lists of a lot of great BBQ sauces. It has a sweet citrusy flavor and really amps up a sauce. If you can't find it in a Whole Foods, an Indian or Asian grocery, it is available online. 
