Larb ped (spicy duck mint salad)

Tam West

This recipe is by chef Lek Trirattanavatin from Ponsonby's saan : "Larb is a traditional dish from Isaan and duck larb is well-known, especially in Udon Thani. Every household has a different recipe for larb and I believe my family's recipe is one of the best. People of Udon Thani usually cook larb to share in their village for special occasions. Duck is considered premium meat to use and it is normally raised in their backyards. Udon Thani has many duck farms and these farmers compete to show their duck's quality by cooking larb with their duck. My job was to catch (and kill) the duck from our back yard for this special dish and my great-grandma passed down the family's recipe to me orally. I have recreated this dish as closely as I can."

Read more on chef Lek and Saan in our feature: From my home to yours.

Ingredients

200 g	Duck meat, including the skin (Main)
30 ml	Fish sauce, plus extra for marinating duck skin
1 to dust	Rice flour, to coat the skin
5 g	Fresh mint
10 g	Spring onions
15 g	Shallots, sliced
6 g	Chilli flakes, birds eye, it can be very spicy so avoid using more
30 ml	Lime juice
1 Tbsp	Toasted rice, made by dry roasting half Jasmine and Thai glutinous rice and then pounding to a fine grain with a mortar and pestle
5 g	Fresh coriander
5 g	Dried chillies, sliced
3	Kaffir lime leaves, deep-fried

Directions

1. Remove the skin from the duck and marinate the skin with some fish sauce, then cut into pieces, coat with rice flour and then deep-fry to make duck crackling.
2. Roughly chop the duck meat, then stir-fry until just cooked, and rest for 7-10 minutes.
3. Put all other ingredients into the mixing bowl and gently (but quickly) mix with the cooked duck.
4. Plate and garnish with duck crackling, dried chilli and kaffir lime leaves. Serve warm with some fresh cabbage and cucumber.

Pantry notes

• Find soft palm sugar at Asian grocers, or substitute with hard palm sugar.
• Find pickled mustard greens (preferably the ones in a bag) at Asian supermarkets.

More recipes from Saan

• Somtum (spicy green papaya salad)
• Khao soi (beef flat egg noodles)