Joy Ngeuamboupha (above) and Caroline Gaylard of Tamarind restaurant in Luang Prabang have been making their delicious Lao food at the Sheraton Grand Sukhumvit this week. As part of the occasion, a small, but elite group of the city's media was invited to take part in a cooking demonstration of three traditional Luang Prabang dishes taught by Joy himself.

Joy, a native of Luang Prabang province, and Caroline, an Australian, originally collaborated to make a cookbook of authentic Lao recipes. This led to, as these things do, a restaurant, and in 2005 Tamarind was born. Today their restaurant is still one of the only handful of places in Luang Prabang where visitors can sample authentic local dishes, and the owners have made it their mission to introduce people to authentic Lao food.

Before going through the dishes Joy taught us, here are a few tips from Joy about sticky rice, the Lao staple:

-Sticky rice should be soaked for 12 hours before cooking
-After soaking, the sticky rice needs to be washed three times; the first time gently squeezing the rice, the second two simply rinsing until eventually the water runs clear
-Sticky rice should be steamed for about 30-40 minutes, uncovered; when steam begins to rise from the top of the rice, take the sticky rice out, flip it over, and steam for another five minutes
-When the sticky rice is done, keep it in a katip, a permeable bamboo basket; keeping the sticky rice in a sealed container will cause it to become inedible mush

Oua Si Khai - Stuffed Lemongrass



Joy began by showing us how to make several long slices in the bottom parts of largish stalks of lemongrass:



After being softened (with a pestle) and opened, the stalks were then stuffed with a filling of ground chicken that had been blended in mortar and pestle along with salt, garlic, spring onions, coriander and kaffir lime leaf:



The lemongrass sticks were then dipped in an egg wash and deep-fried:



until the meat was just done, resulting in the finished product seen above.

Jaew Makok - A "Dip" of Roasted Chilies and Makok


More info
http://realthai.blogspot.com/2007/09/taste-of-luang-prabang-in-bangkok.html