Some advance work is required, here. You need to have cooked and cooled jasmine rice and plain cooked ground pork before you start making this crispy rice salad. When you’re ready, making the Nam Khao is really quite simple: Spice the rice before forming balls that are then deep fried. Let them cool, break them up and mix in cured meat, nuts and fresh herbs. Wrap a spoon or two of the salty, herbal, sweet, and faintly hot filling in lettuce leaves to enjoy the contrasts between crispy, chewy, and soft. David Insixiengmay of Kitchener’s Lao-Thai Super Store provided this Nam Khao recipe.
Jasmine Mangalaseril | InkstainedApron.com
Yield/Servings Serves 6
45 minPrep Time
30 minCook Time
1 hr, 15 Total Time
Save RecipeIngredients
- 1 litre steamed jasmine rice, cooled (Thai Peacock brand, preferably)
- 250g (approximately 1 cup, rounded) ground pork, cooked and cooled
- Peanut oil, or another oil appropriate for deep frying
- 2 tablespoons soy sauce, light soy, preferably
- 2 tablespoons oyster sauce
- 2 tablespoons red curry paste (imported from Thailand, preferably)
- 1 tablespoon siracha (Thai preferably)
- 2 eggs
- 2 teaspoons salt, optional, to taste
- 1 teaspoon black pepper
- 1 tablespoon minced coriander stem
- 3 shallots, thinly sliced
- 85 g (approx. ½ cup) shredded fresh or unsweetened desiccated coconut
- 575 g (1 package) som moo (also known as fermented or sour pork), chopped
- 75 g (approx. ½ cup) roasted or fried peanuts
- 1-2 fresh or thawed makrut lime leaves (not dried), thinly sliced OR the zest of one lime (see notes)
- A handful of chopped coriander leaves
- A few dried chillies
- Lettuce leaves, such as butter lettuce or iceberg lettuce, washed and separated, lime wedges for squeezing
Method
- Heat a tall-sided pot filled halfway with oil to 190 C (375 F). Line a cookie sheet with two layers of paper towels and place a cooling rack over top. As the oil heats, beat eggs with soy sauce, oyster sauce, curry paste, siracha, salt (if using), and pepper. Set aside.
- Combine coconut, minced coriander stems, and shallots and set aside.
- Mix ground pork and rice, distributing the pork evenly, and breaking up large clumps of rice. Add the coconut mixture and combine well. Pour over the spiced egg mixture and, use your hands to mix well, ensuring all the rice is well coated.
- Scoop a half-cup of the mixture and shape into balls by squeezing tightly with both hands, to keep them together when frying. You’ll get 12-13 balls from this recipe.
- When the oil has come to temperature, carefully place two or three balls in the oil, ensuring they don’t touch and the pot is not overcrowded. Cook until they are coppery-brown in colour (about 2-3 minutes per batch). Remove to the prepared rack to drain any excess oil. Fry the remaining balls, being sure to let the oil return to temperature before adding the next batch. Let rest until cool enough to handle.
- Break the balls into a rubble of bite-sized and smaller pieces. Add som moo, peanuts, lime leaves or zest and coriander leaves and mix well.
- To serve: Tip onto a dish and scatter chillies over top. Serve with crisp lettuce leaves.
Notes
If the balls fall apart in the fryer, use a fine-meshed strainer to out lift the grains and drain on paper towels. While you’ll lose the contrast between the soft and crisp rice, the dish is still fine.
A version of this recipe appeared in my profile of David Insixiengmay of Kitchener’s Lao-Thai Super Store for my World of Food column for Grand Magazine (March-April 2020).