I made a lamby larb salad for dinner tonight.

We don’t order much Thai here (in general it is much better back home), but I wanted to try something a bit different and something lamby, and I’d picked up some lamb mince.

I kinda sorta followed this BA recipe:

https://www.bonappetit.com/recipe/lamb-larb

Although one of the others that inspired me was this:

https://www.feastingathome.com/larb/

From which I pinched the Quick Pickle of the onion, which was pretty good, and something that I think good Thai places do well.

From the BA recipe, I didn’t do the peanuts (although it’s a good idea), and I didn’t do cucumber. I also threw in a Thai Red Curry paste, as I didn’t have lemongrass etc, which basically accounted for most of step 1 in flavour profile. I also served it over a crispy set of salad leaves, so it really was a salad.

The BA tip with the lamb was fantastic - “Add lamb to skillet and press into a single flat layer with a flexible spatula. Cook, undisturbed, until underside is browned and crisp around the edges, 5–7 minutes. Use spatula to break patty into smaller pieces and turn.”

Before I’ve always broken my mince up straight away, but it was super great to properly brown it on a side first, before just well, steaming it, and releasing so much of the moisture. Just put the block in and leave it. It really worked well, and looked great too.

It was herby and colourful and delicious. I cut up a medium red chilli and threw some of L & mine, leaving it off G’s (so we got it raw, which might not be ideal, but certainly brought the heat!). In the end though, G thought it was quite (spicy) hot, but was really good about pushing himself anyway. L seemed to really like it.