Mainland Southeast Asia · Volume 40, One Bank to the Other
Or lam
Luang Prabang, Laos
An illustration of the dish, not a photograph of it cooked.
- Time
- 1 hour
- Reviewed
- Not yet reviewed from inside the tradition
- Cooked
- Not yet cooked and reported
The defining ingredient is mai sakhaan, the stem of a wild vine, Piper ribesioides, that gives a distinctive tongue-numbing heat, the closest reference point for a British cook being Sichuan pepper. The royal version reportedly used deer; the everyday version uses buffalo, beef, game or chicken, dried buffalo skin often added for texture.
As tradition built it
Serves 6. About 1 hour.
Ingredients
- 635 g beef chuck, cubed
- 170 g cow skin
- 1 stalk lemongrass, 3 to 4 bird's eye chillies, 5cm galangal, 3 shallots lemongrass, bird's eye chillies, galangal, shallots, for the aromatic base
- 2 cups wood ear mushrooms, 1 cup oyster mushrooms, 6 round eggplants, a handful each of spring onion, yanang leaf, Lao basil and dill wood ear mushrooms, oyster mushrooms, round eggplant, spring onion, yanang leaf, Lao basil, dill
- 2 tbsp padaek
- 2 tbsp fish sauce
- pinch salt
- 15 pieces mai sakhaan (or substitute whole black peppercorn or Sichuan peppercorn)
- ⅓ cup glutinous rice, soaked, blended with 1 tbsp water
Method
- Sauté the aromatic base until fragrant.
- Add the beef and 1.65 litres water, and boil 30 minutes with the lemongrass and mai sakhaan.
- Add the mushrooms and cow skin, and boil a further 15 minutes, covered.
- Add the eggplant, padaek, fish sauce, salt and the blended rice paste, and cook 5 minutes to thicken.
- Finish with the spring onion, yanang leaf, Lao basil and dill stirred through off the heat.
Notes
Mai sakhaan itself is very unlikely to be available fresh in the UK; the substitution above, from an in-tradition Lao-American source, is a genuine and workable alternative rather than an improvisation.
What a modern chef changes
The thickening mechanism understood as its own technique
Rung 5
Method
- Blend the soaked rice to a genuinely smooth paste before adding it, rather than a rough one, for an even thickening across the finished stew rather than uneven flecks of starch.
- Cook the beef separately first, low and slow, sous vide at a steady 80°C for several hours, until fully tender, before combining with the aromatics and finishing together, for a more reliable texture than a single simmer gives.
- Toast whole Sichuan peppercorn briefly in a dry pan before grinding it fresh, extending the same spice-freshness logic used elsewhere in this atlas to the substitute ingredient specifically.