KennethT

I thought I saw mango and dragon fruit. Weird.

What kind of camera did you use for teh underwater photos?

What was the filling in the spring rolls - it looks like various fruit.

For a second, I thought they had put a bunch of the dreaded c0rn on top, until I realized they were peanuts!!!

If the main stems are old and rather woody, it may have more trouble coming back. In any case, I would pick maybe 5 of the best looking sprigs that have growing tips and cut them off and root them separately - just as insurance. If the main plant fails, you can have a veritable rau ram farm from those 5 sprigs in a month or two.

I usually don't post photos of takeout and/or delivery meals but I'm making an exception. Tacos from Electric Burrito. A bunch of shrimp (always perfectly cooked) and one chicken. Due to the time it takes to make them, I'm under the impression that they cook at least the shrimp to order - it's not sitting in a steam table.

I've found that rau ram is almost impossible to kill. And it ALWAYS gets rootbound given any kind of time - it grows roots from anywhere where there's humidity. When my plant was first growing, it started growing roots from the stem that was 1-2 inches out of the "soil" - and not just a couple roots, a veritable root forest. It is more invasive than mint. You could practically hard prune it down to the heavier stems and I think it would most probably still survive. If you're nervous, take a couple of the better looking stems and cut them about 5 inches from the growing tip. Remove all leaves except for maybe the tip leaves. Put the stem standing up in a glass of water - water level up to about an inch below the growing tip. It'll sprout new roots probably within a day.

I love how the Indonesian kencur plants' leaves start out as this spiral and slowly unfurl over a couple weeks.....

@Shelby Happy Birthday!!! What is in the ramekin at the top left of the board?

This makes sense. I know almost nothing about Laotian food, or Burmese food for that matter, which I also gather is similar to northern Thai food. One of my favorite northern Thai foods was a pork curry made without coconut milk but using dried spices - gaeng hung leh - which I gather is Burmese in origin.

Ricker actually said that "pok pok" was the sound a pestle made when making things like curry paste from scratch or som tum.

Northern Thai laap is a totally different thing. It really should have a different name, but the name laap is a designation for the use of chopped meat (or ground, but traditional is hand chopped). According to Andy Ricker (of Pok Pok), laap is named from the sound the knife makes when hitting the cutting board full of meat while chopping it. Anyway, the Northern Thai version has no lime juice and is, instead quite herbal - almost medicinal. It's typically served with a whole bush of various herbs - kind of like what you see in Vietnam. Actually, the first time I ever had the herb rau ram was in the Pok Pok in NYC (now closed) that was served alongside this laap. I have Ricker's Pok Pok book at home which has a recipe for it but you can also find it here: https://www.austinbushphotography.com/blog/blog/pok-pok-preview-3-laap-meuang.html Some of the ingredients are hard to find, but now that a friend has brought some makhwen home from Chiang Mai, I realize that you could sub Sichuan peppercorns and get pretty close. Also, the traditional recipe uses a LOT of offal, but you could definitely do it with plain ground venison. It won't be the same, texture-wise, but many of those offal textures are a little off-putting to most Westerners, so omitting it might not necessarily be a bad thing.

I'm sure it would be just fine. The laap flavors are so strong I don't know if you could tell what type of meat it is. Has anyone made Northern Thai laap rather than the Isaan version?

eG has definitely lost a bit of its heart. @Kerry Beal - what a beautiful way to remember your friend. While we here will miss her interactions with us greatly, I can't imagine what you're going through, losing such a wonderful friend, and her family losing who I'm sure was a dearly loved mother/grandmother.

Do you make your own red curry paste? Most packaged pastes have a good amount of sodium in them.

Maybe subconsciously? I had never been there or even heard of that salad! But it's not just salad - the rau ram has a really strong flavor of its own - plus its texture holds up to wilting underneath the hot chicken. I first had this in Saigon back in 2015.

Malaysian chicken kapitan curry with homemade roti canai.

I don't think you even need to order the potted plant (unless you don't already have potting soil and pot) since it roots so easily. Take practically any branch, pick the leaves off (except for the top two or so) and plunk it in a glass of water. You'll see roots probably by the next day!

I bought a start from a nursery a couple years ago.... I don't think you can root a thin branch - maybe one of the larger branches but I don't know if they'd have them in the market.

Vietnamese grilled (baked/broiled) chicken on a bed of rau ram. I swear, if I had a restaurant, I'd made rau ram soaked in chicken juices either an appetizer or a side dish!

Interesting... it's like an Indian version of Tom Kha. BTW, I think your photo is a LOT better than theirs!

I used to make it all the time but it fell out of rotation after I had problems with my lemongrass plant. Recently I bought some from my local Hmart (a primarily Korean but some other Asian type store) for a barbeque that I keep meaning to post about but haven't yet.... but had some extra, hence.... Usually the stalks I can get here are mostly desiccated husks (I really need to grow a new plant) but these weren't terrible, just not great.

Vietnamese lemongrass chicken, ga xao sa ot.

My curry leaf tree is sprouting a new tree! I'm debating whether to prune it.... Here's the whole garden (minus the 6 kencur plants which are in a different area): The curry leaf tree is doing really well - so bushy now.

Pineapple som tum?