Laab Gai or Laab Chicken

Laab is Lao language; the meaning of Laab is the same as Yum in Thai means a dish with the process of combining mince meat or slice small pieces of meat with herbs, chilli, lime juice and fish sauce together. It is not quite like salad in Western cooking as mostly the main ingredient for Laab or Yum is meat. It can be any kind of meat: chicken, duck, beef, fish or and pork.

Original this dish is commonly and widely eaten in Northern Thailand and people who speak Lao language like Isan or North-Eastern Thais and Lao in Laos. There are other different dishes that have the same kind of process from the same region for example Sok-Lek, Goy, and etc. This dish is commonly served with sticky rice as sticky rice is the staple food of Northern Thais, North-Eastern Thais and Lao.  

This dish became popular and well-known in Thailand, Thai restaurants and Thai or and Lao communities around the world as the migration of Isan or North-Eastern Thais and migration of Lao as well.

I don’t use only just fish sauce for many of my recipes because some recipes original are from Chinese food and also if using only fish sauce in the food is pretty fishy for many people who are not used to eating fish sauce. In Thailand we pretty much use both fish sauce and soy sauce (and oyster sauce) for cooking.

Laab Gai

Ingredients

2                  Boneless, skinless chicken breast (about 350g), minced

1 clove        Garlic, minced

¼ tsp           Sea Salt

1tbsp           Vegetable oil

1 tsp            Soy Sauce

¼ cup          Water

3 tbsp           Lemongrass, finely chopped (see picture)

3 tbsp          Galangal, finely chopped (see picture)

2 tsp             Kaffir Lime leaves, finely chopped (see picture)

2                   Shallots, slice thin

2                  Green Onion, cut into ¼ inch

¼ cup          Culantro, cut into ¼ inch (optional) (see link)

3 stems        Mints, leaves.

3 tbsp          Ground roasted sticky rice

1 tsp            Ground chilli pepper (you can adjust the spiciness; some kind of chilli is very spicy)

4 -5 tbsp      Lime juice (adjustable)

3 tsp            Fish Sauce (adjustable)

Instruction

Roasted Sticky Rice

1. Roast sticky rice with a frying-pan at medium heat until lightly golden. Grind in a mortar and pestle or coffee grinder to a fine powder.
2. Marinate chicken with garlic, salt, oil and soy sauce. Cook the marinated chicken with a pot or frying-pan at medium heat, and add fish sauce and water while stirring and breaking up any lumps with a spoon until it changes colour and totally cooked. Remove from heat and let it cool down a bit so that when you add fresh herbs in the chicken they are still fresh green.



Chop Lemongrass, Galangal and Kaffir lime leaves very fine.

3. Add lime juice, ground rice, ground chilli, lemongrass, galangal, kaffir lime leaves, shallots, green onion and culantro, and mix well.

Slice and cut herbs

4.  Serve with steamed rice or sticky rice.