A Lao and Thai inspired barbeque
The barbeque is a quintessential part of living in Australia. It is typically a ‘steak and snags’ affair, but with such a diverse and multicultural landscape we live in its not uncommon to see food of all types being thrown on for a bit of char-grilled treatment.
The Vietnamese barbeque is usually one of my favorites with piping hot spring rolls and Vietnamese inspired marinated meats eaten with fresh herbs such as mint and basil wrapped in crisp lettuce and vermicelli noodles. However, on a muggy Saturday evening we decided to try something new and go for a Lao and Thai inspired feast.
I’ve mentioned this before, but I love living in South Western Sydney. Being so close to ethnic grocery and butcher hubs means I can have these sort of impromptu barbeque sessions. A quick visit to Cabramatta to do some shopping resulted in the following meal, a mashup of Laos and Thai food …. and the usual finger lickin good fried chicken sans duck fat.
Nhem Khao
This to me is hands down one of my favourite fried rice dishes. Its officially referred to as a salad, but its borderline fried rice if you ask me. You’d be hard pressed to find a dish which has so many textures and contrasting flavours, from the crisp rice balls to saltiness to sweetness to sourness, this dish has it all. If you’re interested, recipe can be found here.
nhem khao
Som Tam (Laos papaya salad)
A spicy and pungent salad made from fresh papaya. It hits all the tastes buds in one go; sweetness(palm sugar), sourness(lime juice), saltiness(fish sauce/shrimp paste). Its a great side dish to grilled meats. The version we made has all the above ingredients and also carrots, cherry tomatoes, crap loads of chili and then topped with fresh herbs.
pestal and mortar, essential requirement for a good salad!
Som Tam (Laos papaya salad)
Fried chicken
Ah fried chicken, I could live on this stuff if not for the health consequences associated with its consumption. Linda’s mum still won’t give us the full recipe to this dish, she claims that she ‘wings it’ with the recipe. I’m calling her a liar because it tastes just as good every single time! Its an awesome fried chicken, with succulent chicken flesh surrounded by a razor thin yet crisp skin. Chowing down a bucket of these with an ice cold beer would be my final meal.
Flank steak
I initially had trouble identifying this cut of meat, they simple called it beef belly at the Cabramatta butcher. Thanks to the power of Twitter, this cut is known as flank steak. Its a great cut for grilling with a good balance of meat and fat resulting in tender meat if cooked properly, medium rare is best.
We didn’t marinate this at all, just a couple pinches of salt before popping it into the barbeque. It was probably slightly overcooked but still pink enough in the middle to ensure it was still tender.
bbq grilled flank steak
Ox tongue
Another common Laos barbeque dish which I am seeing more and more on restaurant menus . Its an underrated piece of meat and if you can get over the fact that it is a piece of tongue, you’ll be rewarded with one of the most tender cuts of meat you can find at a great price. Cook it whole on the barbeque and only slice it thinly once it is all cooked.
ox tongue
And the rest …
The final damage was an array of mixed meats including beef skewers, nhem noung (not exactly Laos but you get it for free if you a lot of meat from the Butchers in Cabramatta), flank steak and ox tongue.
The grilled meats
And there you have it, a bit of a twist to the conventional barbeque but it was well worth the effort. If you want a bit of variety away from the obligatory steak, snags and salad there is a whole new world out there of variations to try.
The biggest takeaway out of this for me was that flank steak makes an awesome cut of meat for grilling. Its cheap and tastes awesome if you like a bit of fat on your meat.
Whats next?
An Argentinian themed barbeque is in the pipeline, stay tuned hermanos y hermanas.
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By Howard
We started eatshowandtell in 2008, it was meant to be just a journal of where we ate. The first thing I usually do when I'm looking for a restaurant is check out eatability and the restaurant website. But what is usually missing is pictures of the food, how do I know I'm getting what I expect? This blog hopefully plugs that gap.
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This article was written on 30 Mar 2011, and is filed under cookshowandtell, Laos, Thai.
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Great post…. I only have one word. Hungry!
Oh my god, I want that fried chicken in my belly so badly. Who needs a Double Down when you have this home-fried baby. And absolute agreement in loving South Western Sydney – Sydneysiders have no idea what they’re missing! Thanks for the post dude.
Totally agree with Margaret. We have it pretty damn good in the west. Damn I’m craving some ox tongue and papaya salad after seeing those pics!
Had a little chuckle with the nem nuong remark. Woot to free kg of nem nuong when you buy lots of meat. Gotta love the west!
Love those shots on the chopping board – fantabulous, especially the tongue!
I love the Vietnamese nem nuong (I think?) on the barbie – so yummy!
I’d do anything for fried chicken, anything! LOL Fabulous food!
This looks about 1000 times better than the Aussie BBQs I’ve been having my entire life. That chicken looks finger licking!
mmm I can smell all the flavours, flank steak is awesome
Fwoar, now thats a bbq! The ox tongue looks a sensation
Hungry! Love a multicultural BBQ =) Our BBQ’sare usually quite ‘Aussie’ with steaks and snags but they are usually marinated with soy & asian flavours and the snags come from the Vietnamese butcher so they arn’t of the typical variety. Recently though I’ve taken mum’s reign over the bbq meat so we’ve had pork ribs with bbq sauce, garlic & rosemary lamb chops, grilled corn & roast vegies!
I don’t think Linda’s mum is lying… that’s how my mum cooks too, it all comes down to tasting as you go and doing it so many times that your eye becomes adjusted to the quantity that is used – that’s how I’ve learnt to cook too! Plus, if they do something so well they will never quite want someone else to have the ‘recipe’
Thanks for the post , learnt something today abt the flank steak. Sometimes I see in Chinese butcher shop of beef flank and they mean brisket. Can be quite confusing sometimes…
This is a dream bbq, mmmmm meat
OMG, everything looks so good! Want a bit of each dish now!
I want to grab a taste of each of those! They look mouth watering, especially that ox tongue. YUM! Thanks for sharing.