Recently I went to lunch at a Thai-Laotian restaurant on Hotel Street called Olay’s. One dish stood out to me: nam khao, a Laotian crispy rice salad.
This article is two parts. The first part is about the rice salad and the second part is about an ingredient that I recently stumbled upon, rice grits. Most of you know that I almost never cook authentically in the ethnic style of a dish. Rather, I take the dish or idea and think about it, and what comes out is what I want to eat with similar flavors.
I just love koge rice, the burnt bottom of the rice pot that contains the crispy rice. It’s the same for yaki onigiri; my mom made grilled rice balls often for an after-school snack. So, when I heard crispy rice salad, I knew I would love it right away.
This popular appetizer salad originated from Tha Deua, a small port village in Vientiane, Laos. It is made with jasmine rice balls, sometimes flavored with curry and herbs, then deep fried. The fried rice balls are broken and mixed with fish sauce, som moo or soured pork, herbs, and roasted peanuts. It is typically eaten as a lettuce wrap with added fried peppers. It’s very savory; refreshing with all the herbs, lettuce and acid from the sausage and lime juice; and full of texture from the crispy rice and peanuts.
I eat natto for breakfast often, along with my homemade kimchi that I ferment naturally with kalo poi, some avocado and oatmeal. I made some rice grits the day before and had some cold leftovers. I took it and wanted to see if I could make crispy rice grits in my air fryer. It came out crispy and tasty, so I made my version of a crispy rice salad with it. I added natto, kimchi, air-fryer tofu, peanuts, a lot of cilantro, seasonings and chile oil garlic crisp. I could have added pork but kept it vegan, so no fish sauce either. I enjoyed it. It was comforting for me and the crispy rice grits were a nice surprise.
Rice grits were a find through some research. I have eaten regular grits made from yellow or white corn, and I recently ate some blue grits and red grits. Rice grits didn’t make sense at first because I thought grits came from corn. They are basically made from broken rice pieces. During the milling process some grains break, so the pieces are similar in size to coarse grits and therefore they cook similarly to corn grits in approximately the same time. I discovered how important rice was to the South; it was a huge business. The culinary anthropology and history of how rice came to the South is fascinating. I love rice and am always interested to see what other cultures do with rice.
The more I learn, the more I am still discovering new things. Anson Mills in South Carolina is a good resource for ingredients and it offers a bunch of recipes on its website. The Laotians make nam khao using jasmine rice. Rice grits are made from rice, but my next crispy rice salad will be made from red-, blue-, or white-colored corn grits. It’s another example of how cuisine has gone global and that you can change a dish up just by changing a few ingredients; not that nam khao needs any changing at all.
Chef and restaurateur Alan Wong has wowed diners around the world for decades, and is known as one of the founders of Hawaii Regional Cuisine. Find his column in Crave every first Wednesday. Currently, Wong is dba Alan Wong’s Consulting Co.
