About this recipe
Or lam is a hearty stew from Luang Prabang and the Lao north: a thick, vegetable-packed pot seasoned with padaek and, traditionally, with sakhan — a peppery, faintly numbing woody vine that gives the dish its signature warmth — and studded with meat (buffalo or beef) and a jumble of eggplant, long beans, greens, mushrooms and gourd, often finished with plenty of dill. It is earthy, bitter-edged and herbal rather than rich or sweet, and it is quite different from a coconut curry, a Vietnamese stew or a Cambodian samlor. This book presents a northern-Lao form and logs the ingredient and origin questions — especially around sakhan and the use of dried buffalo skin in some versions — for verification.
Recipe facts
- Yield
- 4 to 6 servings
- Prep
- 30 minutes
- Cook
- 50 minutes
- Total
- 80 minutes
- Difficulty
- Intermediate
- Spice
- Medium (plus the peppery warmth of sakhan)
Allergens As written contains beef and, via padaek and fish sauce, fish. Some traditional versions add dried buffalo skin (offal-adjacent). Contains no coconut, dairy or gluten as written. Not vegetarian as written. See the halal-status field.
Development draft. This is an untested development recipe from the cookbook project. It has not been kitchen-tested, and the quantities and timings are the author’s working draft rather than a verified result.
Ingredients
The stew base
- 1 lb (450 g) beef chuck or stewing beef, cut into bite-size pieces
- 6 cups (1.4 L) water
- 2 tbsp (30 g) padaek, boiled and strained (see notes), or 2 tbsp (30 ml) fish sauce
- 1 tbsp (15 ml) fish sauce, plus more to taste
- 1 piece sakhan (peppery Lao vine), a few inches, if available, or 1/2 tsp (1 g) coarsely ground black pepper as a stand-in
- 3 dried red chillies, or to taste
- 3 shallots and 4 cloves garlic, roasted or raw, pounded to a paste
The vegetables
- 1 cup kabocha squash or gourd, in chunks
- 1 Asian eggplant, cut into chunks
- 1 cup long beans, cut into 2 in (5 cm) lengths
- 1/2 cup dried wood-ear mushroom, soaked and sliced
- 2 cups leafy greens (such as gai lan, water spinach or mustard greens)
- 2 cups pea eggplants or small round Thai eggplants (optional)
To finish and serve
- 1 cup chopped dill
- 1/2 cup chopped scallion and coriander
- 1 to 2 tbsp toasted glutinous-rice powder, to thicken (optional)
- Steamed sticky rice (recipe #91), to serve
Equipment
- Large pot or Dutch oven
- Small saucepan for boiling the padaek
Method
- Boil the padaek with a little water for 5 minutes and strain; reserve the liquid.
- In the pot, simmer the beef in the 6 cups water with the strained padaek, fish sauce, sakhan (or pepper), dried chillies and the shallot-garlic paste until the beef is tender, about 40 minutes, skimming as needed.
- Add the squash and simmer 8 minutes, then add the eggplant, long beans and wood-ear and simmer 8 minutes more, until the vegetables are tender.
- If you want a thicker stew, stir in the toasted glutinous-rice powder and simmer 3 minutes.
- Add the leafy greens and cook just until wilted.
- Stir in most of the dill, scallion and coriander, and season with more fish sauce to taste. The stew should be thick, earthy, peppery and herbal.
- Serve hot in bowls, scattered with the remaining dill, with sticky rice alongside.
The Complete Edition
Or Lam (Luang Prabang Stew) sits in the Laos chapter
The book carries this recipe in full alongside the rest of the Laos chapter, the pastes and dips it is built on, and the twenty-seven pantry studies that open the collection.
In review with Amazon KDP
Both editions have been submitted to Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing and are currently in review. Submitted prices are $9.99 for the kindle edition and $49.99 for the paperback. Neither is on sale yet, and prices are as submitted rather than final.