Thai Larb
Thai Larb
I love Thai food and this is one of my favorites.  It's unique, low cal, and really good.  It's also easy to cook and definitely not something that most Americans eat very often.  You have two choices when you make this dish.  You can use chicken breasts and a food processor or you can use store bought ground chicken or ground turkey.  Although chicken breasts and food processor are my favorite, store bought ground chicken or turkey work well.  However, because store bought ground chicken and turkey has much more fat, you don't add canola oil to them but you do have to add it to chicken breasts with a food processor.  Don't skip the canola oil to try to save callories.  If you don't have at least a little fat the chicken sticks to the pan and it dries out as it cooks.

Dressing:
1/3 cup freshly squeezed lime juice
1 tbl fish sauce
2 tbl packed brown sugar
½ tsp Sriracha sauce

Thai Larb:
1½ lbs boneless skinless chicken breasts, cut into 1"cubes or 1½ lbs of ground chicken or turkey
½ cup chopped shallots (rough chopped if you are using a food processor and finely chopped if you are not) 
½ Thai chili with the seeds (rough chopped if you are using a food processor and finely chopped if you are not) (if you can't find Thai chilies ½ a jalapeno works well)
3 cloves garlic (rough chopped if you are using a food processor and finely chopped if you are not)
2 tsp
 		fish sauce
1 tsp
 		salt
1 tbl
 		canola oil (only if you are using chicken breasts and a food processor)
8
 		iceberg lettuce leaves
2 tbl
 		sesame seeds
2 tbl
 		chopped cilantro

First mix the lime juice, fish sauce, brown sugar, and Sriracha sauce together in a small mixing bowl and stir until the sugar dissolves.  Set this aside.

If you are using chicken breasts put the chicken, shallots, chili, garlic, fish sauce, and salt in a food processor and pour 1 tbl of the canola oil over it.  Pulse the food processor 6 or 8 times to chop everything up.

If you are using ground chicken or turkey, mix the chicken or turkey, shallots, chili, garlic, fish sauce, and salt together in a bowl.

After you have the chicken or turkey mixture ready, add it to a nonstick frying pan and turn the heat to medium high.  Cook this for 6 to 8 minutes until the chicken is done throughout, breaking the chicken up like you would when cooking ground meat.  Cook the meat mixture until the moisture it gives up is gone.  Add the dressing and cook until most of the moisture in the dressing is gone.

To serve, scoop up some of the chicken or turkey and place it on a lettuce leaf, sprinkle some sesame seeds and cilantro over it, roll it up, and eat it like a taco or burrito.

Home