Larb From Another Land

About author / Amy Powell

World traveler; gourmet 30 minute meals; lover of exotic ingredients; winner on FoodTV's Chefs vs City; graduate French Culinary Institute. Her recipes will tantalize your taste buds.

It is a rare and happy occasion to discover a restaurant serving food that evokes a specific fond memory. The meatballs that taste just like your Italian grandmother’s. The pie that your mother made in the summer. The taco that is the mirror image of one had on a Mexico vacation. A single bite, like Proust’s madeleine, can take you back to places long forgotten.

So it was for me nearly two years ago, the first time I crossed the threshold and descended the stairs to Zabb Elee in Manhattan’s East Village. This was not a random discovery. Instead I had tripped across a mention of the restaurant online, as many food discoveries happen these days. At the mention that Zabb Elee specialized in Northern Thai cuisine by my skin tingled. A food memory lingered not far in my amygdala.

Northern Thailand was my first trip to Asia, my first trans-Pacific journey preceding many more to come. Maybe that is why the tangy kaffir lime, aromatic lemongrass, fiery chilies, and pungent shallots woven through the food of that region is seared in my memory bank.

Back on these shores, I feel I have been searching to find a dish that takes me back to that place, to that first trip that made me fall in love with South East Asian cuisine. Zabb Elee turned out to be that place.

Pad Ped Moo Krab, a dish of crispy pork belly with thumb-sized green eggplants, pickled green peppercorns and basil came swimming in a brown curry so addictive it was tempting to lick the plate. As for the larb, a cool dish of minced meat found throughout that special region where Thailand meets Laos, it was a precise facsimile of the larb of past adventures. Here I ordered it as minced duck, though on later occasions I would be perfectly content exploring versions in catfish and pork.

Having found a restaurant that could so precisely make the food of my travel memories, it was only a matter of time before I endeavored to do it myself. Thai curries are staple dishes of our home kitchen but larb had rarely crossed my mind as being a dish that I could make as well.

On a recent evening I had the good fortune of over-buying and over-preparing several gargantuan duck breasts. After having worked the leftovers into duck curry and duck soup there was still a bit left crying out for a different preparation. It was finally my time, it seemed, to try and make larb.

Working off a recipe from a miniscule Laotian book I had in my cookbook pile, I adapted it to my western kitchen and came up with a perfectly respectable version of duck larb. Minced lemongrass and shallots sautéed in oil while chopped cilantro, green onions, ginger, and rehydrated kaffir lime slices, and chili came together in a large bowl. I minced the remaining half-pound of seared duck breast and sautéed that in the same as the lemongrass and shallots. Into the bowl it went with salt, lime juice, fish sauce, and mint. I served the pungent salad with traditional sticky rice, but jasmine would have been just fine.

It wasn’t quite Zabb Elee’s, nor was I eating at a roadside restaurant in Northern Thailand, but I didn’t even need to close my eyes to be transported. The aromas of distant memories filled our dining room with the scent of another time.

Serves/Makes: 2

• 5 slices dehydrated kaffir lime
• OR
• 1 tablespoon lime zest
• 2 lemongrass stalks
• 1 large shallot
• 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
• 2 tablespoons minced cilantro
• 2 green onions
• 1 piece (1/2 inch size) ginger, peeled
• 2 Thai chiles
• 1/2 pound seared duck breast, fat rendered (can substitute raw pork or dark meat chicken)
• salt
• 1/2 teaspoon sugar
• 1 tablespoon fish sauce
• 2 tablespoons lime juice
• 1/4 cup chopped mint