Lettuce Wraps- Lao Style

Pan Ba literally means Fish Wrap. It's fun to make and delicious to eat!

 

1. Leafy greens- lettuce, cabbage, and an assortment of herbs. There’s also a small bag of rice noodles in there somewhere.

2. Fish- It comes strapped tightly in a piece of bamboo (they use it to hold on to when the fish is being grilled). If you need instructions about how to disassemble the fish, head over to this post about how to eat grilled fish.

3. Sauce- This sauce is called Jeow Pan Ba - Fish Wrap Sauce (also mentioned in the grilled fish post).

4. Toppings- bean sprouts, lemongrass, chili peppers, unripe star fruit, long beans, peanuts, horseradish, fried pig skin, eggplant, and cucumber.

Now, assemble and eat!

 

1. Get a wrapping- either lettuce or cabbage (I usually choose cabbage because I like the crunch).

2. Add a piece of fish.

3. Choose any toppings! My first wrap contained a long bean, some mint, and bean sprouts.

4. Hong’s wraps are usually more robust than mine. His had mint, a pepper, noodles, and another leafy herb (not sure what it’s called, anyone know?)

5. Dip in the sauce and eat.

6. Make another! I decided to get a little adventurous with my second one: eggplant, horseradish, noodles, peanuts. A little strange. It’s fun to try different combinations!

Grilled Fish- The Impolite Way

I had so much fun with this tutorial about noodle soup that I decided to do another one!

One of my favorite meals here is fresh grilled fish. Unfortunately, there is no polite way to eat it.

In my opinion, it is most delicious when eaten with a sweet sauce called Jeow Pan Ba, sticky rice, long bean salad, and Pepsi!

 

Part 1

1. Grip the top fin and pull to separate the skin from the body.

2. Carefully peel the skin, making sure the meat stays intact.

3. Peel the skin until the entire side is exposed.

4. Extract meat with a fork (it will be quite hot).

5. Make sure there are no bones in your meat. Eat with the delicious sauce!



WARNING: Steps 6-11 are a bit messy, therefore these pictures may be too graphic for the little'uns.

Part 2

6. Clean out all of the meat on the first side.

7. Sever the spine at the base of the head and pull it out toward the tail. This will allow you to access the second side of delicious meat.

8. Eat.

9. Continue eating (can you spot the differences between pictures 8 and 9?)

10. If you dare, grab a spoon and scoop up the tender innards (pictured in the blue box). In Lao, these are called keuang nai - things inside.

11. Admire a job well done. Feed skin and bones to an eagerly-awaiting dog.

This entire meal costs about $6. So. Good.

Noodle Soup- The Polite Way

A common lunch here in Laos is noodle soup. There are a couple of different varieties. This one is called Kao Piek (wet rice). It consists of broth, thick rice noodles, meat (usually chicken or pork), fried onion, and spring onion. You can ask for it with or without coagulated blood.

1. First, you must decide how to dress your soup. The choices are: fish sauce, soy sauce, hot sauce, tomato sauce, vinegar, hot peppers, pureed ginger, sugar, MSG, ground pepper, lime, and bean sprouts.

2. I chose ginger, bean sprouts, and lime.

3. Pick up a noodle with your chopsticks. This can be tricky as the noodles are very thick and slippery.

4. Place the noodle in your spoon. If the noodle is too long to fit, cut it with the edge of your spoon.

5. Add to your spoon anything else from your bowl that you would like to eat. I added a fried onion. (The thing that looks like a leg is actually a delicious fruit shake. You can a bit of it in step 7.)

6. If you get a beautiful chunk of meat like this one, it’s easy to eat. If you’re foreign, they’ll often give you the nicer pieces of meat. The lady serving us actually said “Tooay nee samlap falang dur!” = “This bowl is for the foreigner!”

7. If you get pieces like this one (more common), you’ll have to use your fingers to make sure to get every bit of meat off of the bone.

One bowl of delicious soup costs 12,000 kip = $1.50.


So how do you take your Kao Piek?