My Lao Kitchen // Lao Salad and Fried Vegetables

If i've learned anything this year it certainly wasn't how to cook Lao food. Getting people to cook for you here is easy, but getting them to actually teach you.. not so much. Fortunately, I finally found someone who would. And so I put my best indirect communications skills to work and my co-teacher agreed to show my roommate and I how to make some easy Lao recipes.

First up Lao Salad. With the weather being extra hot these past few months I have been craving fresh fruits and vegetables so Lao Salad was a perfect choice. 

Lao Salad & Dressing

Salad ingredients:

lettuce

watercress

green onions 

2-3 tomatoes

4-5 boiled egg whites

1/8 crushed peanuts

*many Lao salads also include cucumber, but I have a strong dislike for cucumbers. So if you are a cucumber person I first of all don't understand how you can eat those nasty things and second feel free to add them to your salad* 

Dressing ingredients:

4-5 boiled egg yolks

approx. 1/4 cup of sugar

2 Tbs oil

2-3 Tbs mayonnaise

3 limes

Directions: First boil about 4-5 eggs. Meanwhile, wash and throw your greens into a large bowl

 

Once your eggs are boiled slice them in half and separate the whites from the yolk. Then slice up the whites into smaller strips and toss them in with the greens. Top the salad with tomatoes and the crushed peanuts.

Next make the dressing. (or make while your eggs are still boiling) My co-teacher said the dressing was to sour and needed more sugar, but I thought it was fine just the way it was. So you might want to add more sugar when you make it; most of my measurements are approximate anyway.

In a bowl mash the egg yolks and mix in the sugar and oil. Add the the mayonnaise, and finally squeeze in some lime juice. Stir until the mixture is thick but liquidy. Drizzle the dressing over the salad and you're ready to serve. Easy Peasy. 

Along with our Lao salad we had fried vegetables and chicken. The best thing about this dish is you can really make it however you want to. I've had this same dish with completely different vegetables and pork instead of chicken, so it is really up to you. Just pick out your favorite veggies; we had carrots, green peppers, mushrooms, red onions, and miniature corn on the cob. Then pick a meat. 

Directions: Start by cooking the meat. We had a sort of chicken meatball thing that was already cooked so we just had to heat it back up. Though not bad, I think next time I will make it with just regular grilled chicken.

Next add your veggies as well as 2 tbs of oyster sauce (again I repeat all my measurements are approximate so just kind of eyeball if you think you need more or less). Then add in about a tablespoon of pork seasoning.

The pork seasoning comes in packets that look like this! Though I doubt you will find this exact one in your local grocery store, I am sure they have similar stir fry seasoning in the Asian food isles that will be just as good. 

Serve the vegetables with steamed rice, a side of Lao salad, and enjoy!

My Lao Kitchen: Sticky Rice

Here in Laos sticky rice is a staple. It is one of the few truly Lao foods and therefore natives are very proud to call it their own. I haven’t had a Lao meal where sticky rice wasn’t served in abundance. Surprisingly though Lao people are for some reason convinced that foreigners can’t eat it. “Can you eat sticky rice?” they ask before the meal. “Yes,” I say in fact I really like sticky rice.

As stated in the name sticky rice is very sticky. The rice is different than regular steamed rice so if you’re at the market make sure you don’t just pick up any bag of rice. Sticky rice is special because when you cook it the rice clumps together making for one giant glob. Once the rice is finished cooking you pack it into a little basket and serve it with laap, omelets, papaya salad, fish, soups, basically anything and everything. Now don’t take this as absolute fact because I am still learning the art of how to eat sticky rice, because no you don’t just eat sticky rice there is a specific way. My students taught me to grab a fistful of rice and to sort of squeeze it in your hand into an oval shape. Then you pull off a little piece with your other hand and squeeze it so it is flat and round and use it as a makeshift spoon to eat your laap or papaya salad or whatever other dish you are having.

Sticky Rice Recipe:

Ingredients:

2 cups of sticky rice

4-5 cups of warm water

You will also need a: Large pot and a steamer basket

Directions:

Pour the sticky rice and water into a large pot. Let the sticky rice soak for 24 hours. Drain the sticky rice into the steamer basket. Boil water in the pot and place the steamer basket over the pot and leave for about 20 minutes. 

Take the rice out of the steam basket, mold together, and place it in serving basket. 

Note: Sticky rice does not make good leftovers due to the fact that it dries out very quickly. So I suggest making only what you will need for one meal. Between my roommate and I, 2 cups was way to much.  

My Lao Kitchen: Gingerbread Men

No dessert feels more Christmasy to me than cookies. I don't know what it is, maybe its that they both start with a C but Christmas and cookies go together like peanut butter and jelly. Fortunately cookies are easy to make here in Laos and all the ingredients are readily available. (Side note: chocolate chip cookies are my absolute favorite and I CAN NOT resist the temptation to devour them. Second side note: chocolate chip cookie dough is even more tempting.)

Now back on task, while out shopping one day I spotted some gingerbread men cookie cutters and knew they would be perfect for baking cookies with students. And as you might have seen in my previous post the gingerbread men were a hit with my students. I hope that you enjoy them too!

Gingerbread Men recipe:
Mix together:
1/2 cup of butter
1 egg
2 tbs of honey (molasses was the one ingredient I couldn't find which is why I used honey)
1 cup of brown sugar

Separately combine together:
3 cups of flour
1 tsp of baking soda
2 tsp of cinnamon
2 tsp of ginger (I used fresh grated ginger from the market one of the perks of living in Laos)
1 tsp of allspice
1/2 tsp of salt

Then add both mixtures together. Once ingredients are well combined roll out the dough onto a flat surface until it is thin and smooth. Then use cookie cutters to cut out dough into gingerbread men. Lay out cookies on a baking sheet and stick in the fridge for a few hours or over night. Once the dough is cold, heat the oven to 350F (or 180C). Bake for 10-15 minutes.

The recipe makes about 40 small-medium sized gingerbread men.

My Lao Kitchen: Christmas Tree Brownies

Only 19 more days until Christmas, but who's counting? This week thanks to a few lights, paper, markers, and a whole lot of scotch tape it is starting to look a lot like Christmas. I've put out a little Christmas tree which even has a present under it (That I bought myself for myself. Don't judge me.) My roommate and I taught our neighbors how to make paper snowflakes, watched Elf with some friends, made a Christmas countdown chain, and baked delicious Christmas tree brownies.

Christmas Tree Brownies:

After baking all the pumpkin recipes we could find my roommate and I still had lots of puree leftover so I decided it was time to whip up some of my favorite pumpkin brownies. Now normally I like to bake everything from scratch but this recipe is just to good and easy to pass up. All you need is a box of brownie mix and some pumpkin. Mix the two ingredients together, stick it in the oven according to the directions on the box, and your done! See easy peasy!

But because it is Christmas season I didn't want to make just any ordinary old brownies. I spotted this idea on Pinterest (of course) and decided to give it a go. Once the brownies were cooled I cut them out into triangles. Now this was a little difficult because I didn't have a triangle cookie cutter and instead had to use a knife. Most of the triangles came out decent looking, the tricky part was trying to cut them all the same size. With all the "trees" cut out I topped them with cream cheese frosting (my favorite) colored with green for the trees and red for the ornaments. My brownies by no means turned out perfect looking, but they were fun to make and really delicious (and that's what's really important, right?!)

Christmas Tree Brownie Recipe:

Brownies
Ingredients
1 box brownie mix
1 can of 15oz pumpkin or homemade pumpkin puree

Directions: Preheat oven according to the directions on the box. Mix together brownie mix and pumpkin puree. Bake.

Cream Cheese Frosting
Ingredients
4 oz of butter
8 oz of cream cheese
2 cups of powdered sugar
1 tsp of vanilla extract
Green food coloring
Red food coloring

Directions: Beat together butter and cream cheese. Slowly add in the powdered sugar, still mixing as you go. Next stir in the vanilla extract. Separate the frosting into two bowls one for red and one for green. (Tip: You will use more green frosting than red.) Mix in the food coloring a little at a time until you reach desired shade.

My Lao Kitchen: Pumpkin Spice and Everything Nice

I hope everyone is enjoying the lovely fall weather. Though it has cooled off considerably since I first arrived in Luang Prabang; I still won't be pulling out my boots, cardigans, and scarves anytime soon (Ignore the fact that I didn't even bother to pack any boots, cardigans, or scarves) Along with missing out on the cool crisp weather of the season I am also missing all my other favorite fall things, like pumpkin flavored everything (stereotypical I know) and Thanksgiving with my family. So what's a girl to do when there are no signs of autumn anywhere to be found, well she's gotta create a little fall magic of your own. So that is what I did.

To my roommates and I happy surprise, pumpkins started popping up in the markets, and after spotting a recipe for pumpkin bread on one of my favorite blogs Rhyme and Ribbons I had found how I was going to bring a little fall to Laos.

So I went out and picked up a couple of pumpkins and got to work. I shoveled out all the slimy insides and put the pumpkin seeds aside for roasting. I cut the pumpkin up into chunks and put them in the oven to bake. After about 40 minutes the pumpkin slices were ready to be pureed, so I pulled out my blender, tossed the pumpkin in, and pressed puree. Nothing. Just a whirling sound while my pumpkin slices sat there untouched. I tried again, but still nothing. I dumped out the pumpkin and decided to take the old fashioned approach. With a fork and my hands I smashed the pumpkin until the texture was smooth and creamy (who needs a blender).

Now that my pumpkin was ready it was time to find the other ingredients. Fortunately finding the other ingredients didn't cause me to much grief except for the nutmeg. I could only find ridiculously large containers of nutmeg that were way outside of my budget; so I substituted Allspice. (which worked just fine). I changed a few other small things as well. I didn't have a bread pan so I made pumpkin muffins instead and lowered the cooking time to about 30 minutes. I also left out the chocolate chips and halved the recipe. 

Here is my slightly altered recipe: 

(You can find the original recipe here: Rhyme and Ribbons' Pumpkin Bread)

Ingredients: 

Makes about 10 medium sized muffins

1/3 cup of sugar

1/3 cup of brown sugar

1/4 cup of oil (I used coconut oil)

1 egg

1/2 cup of pumpkin

1/2 teaspoon of baking soda

1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon of salt

1/4 teaspoon of allspice

1 cup of flour

2 tablespoons + 2 teaspoons of milk

In a bowl mix the sugars, the oil, and the egg until smooth.

Next add in the pumpkin and mix again. 

In another bowl, whisk the baking soda, cinnamon, salt, allspice, and flour. 

Now here is where I forgot to read directions and just poured all the milk straight in without alternating between the pumpkin mix. But honestly with so little milk I don't think it mattered, and the muffins still turned out just fine. If you want to be correct, alternate between blending in the milk and the pumpkin mix in with the other ingredients. Or you can be like me and just pour in all the milk, and then add the pumpkin mix a little at a time. 

Once the batter is ready pour into a muffin tin and bake at 350 F (or approx. 180 C) for 30 minutes. 

The muffins were so delicious and tasted like fall (if fall had a taste that is). You can bet that these muffins didn't last long. Thankfully my pumpkin puree did and my roommate and I were able to make lots of other pumpkin treats like these pumpkin cookies (also from Rhyme and Ribbons), pumpkin spice oatmeal, and pumpkin pancakes. 

My Lao Kitchen: Breakfast for Dinner

Let me introduce you to my kitchen...

Okay end of tour. Yes that's right all I have is this single stove top. (A toaster oven is hopefully on its way, and I can not wait for it to get here!) As a girl who practically grew up in the kitchen, I have developed a love for cooking and especially baking. So how am I supposed to go a year with a single stove and a toaster oven (that still hasn't made its way into my kitchen yet)? I'm going to have to get creative I guess.

So I present to you adventures in "My Lao Kitchen". I made a fun little tab at the top of this page, where I will be documenting all my adventures in cooking here in Laos. First up, pancakes!

My roommate and I were out shopping planning to pick up some pasta and just have a night in, when we spotted the pancake mix. We immediately forgot our spaghetti filled dreams; texting our friends inviting them over to join us for dinner. After picking up the rest of the ingredients we headed back home ready to whip up some delicious flapjacks. We dug through the pots and pans that the teachers before us left behind, and found a huge frying pan. Perfect! or so you would think. Remember we were working with a single stove top that was maybe half the size of this pan, but we didn't have much of a choice. We had to work with what we had. So we heated up the stove and whisked together the pancake mix, milk, eggs. Once the batter was ready we poured a little into the pan, starting out with making three pancakes at a time.

I wish I could say it went smoothly. That we played Frank Sinatra (which we really did) and each of our pancakes came out perfectly golden and fluffy. Instead our first round cooked so unevenly due to the fact that only half the pan fit over the stove, but we didn't give up hope. We ate the pancakes, hiding all evidence of failure, and continued on this time making one pancake at a time. Success! It took us a little over an hour, but we had enough pancakes to feed us and our friends.

Next up was syrup. Syrup doesn't exist in Laos as far as my roommate and I know, so we decided to take a chance in making our own. I found a recipe and began boiling the water. Later pouring and mixing in the sugar until it dissolved. How can you go wrong with sugar and water? I'm glad you asked. Soon after taking the concoction off the stove the syrup cooled and hardened, not exactly ideal for pouring over pancakes. I attempted melting it again, and left it on the stove top so it would stay warm. Unfortunately it didn't turn out quite like it did the first time, but my friends swore to me that it was still good.

Despite the syrup setback, we all stuffed ourselves full with pancakes and fruit. Enjoying a taste from home after a long week. And having to make enough pancakes for five people one at a time must not have been to much of a hassle for us, because my roommate and I volunteered to do it again the next night for some of our students.