Skip to content

Recipes with dried chillies

3 recipes that use dried chillies, with photos, step-by-step instructions and cook times. The quickest, Nam khao, takes 75 minutes. It is most often cooked with garlic, mint and shallot.

Got a few things in the fridge? Search by everything you have

Nam khao

Party food in Vientiane often means a platter of nam khao: golden balls of curry-spiced rice deep-fried until crackling, then smashed and tossed with sour pork, peanuts, shallots, herbs and lime, and scooped into lettuce leaves with a fresh chilli on the side. Evening stalls near the city's markets sell it by the bag, and it's a fixture at weddings and New Year gatherings in April. Traditionally the sour pork is som moo, cured raw fermented pork with shredded skin, which is never cooked; that raw cured version is not for pregnant women, young children or anyone with a weakened immune system. This safer version uses minced pork cooked through and sharpened with lime and garlic, with cooked pork skin for chew if you like. Frying rice balls in oil that isn't hot enough is the usual mistake, as they soak up oil and fall apart. Chef's tip: use rice cooked the day before and chilled; it holds together and fries far crisper.

75 minLaoSaladsGluten free
by KrazyBadal 0 views

Babbouche

After dark in Marrakech's great square, the babbouche stalls are recognisable by their steaming cauldrons and the toothpicks laid out by every bowl. Small land snails simmer in a dark broth of liquorice root, aniseed, thyme, caraway, bitter orange peel, chilli and a bundle of herbs that sellers say has fifteen ingredients, believed to soothe the stomach and warm you on a cold night. You pick the snails out with a toothpick, then drink the peppery, herbal, faintly sweet broth. At home, buy live snails sold for cooking, already purged by a reputable seller, discard any with broken shells or that do not move or retract when touched, and cook them through for at least 45 minutes. Chef's tip: keep the spices in a muslin bag; the broth stays clear and you avoid crunching on seeds.

by KrazyBadal 0 views

Mushroom or lam

Or lam belongs to Luang Prabang, the old royal town on the Mekong, where it is cooked for long family lunches and served at almost every restaurant that makes local food. It is a thick, rustic stew of aubergine, long beans, mushrooms and greens, thickened with a little sticky rice and flavoured with sakhan, a peppery wood that numbs the lips like Sichuan pepper, plus heaps of dill and lemongrass. The usual dried buffalo skin and meat are swapped for two kinds of mushroom here. Eat it with sticky rice and a jeow. Chef's tip: if you can't find sakhan, a few lightly crushed Sichuan peppercorns give the same tingle; add them early so the tingle spreads through the broth.

by KrazyBadal 0 views

Goes well with dried chillies