Isan grilled beef sliced and dressed with toasted rice powder, lime, fish sauce, and dried chilli, tossed with shallot, mint, and sawtooth coriander
Origin: Khon Kaen & the Khorat Plateau
From the journey of Rice.
Nam tok means waterfall, and the usual explanation is the juice that runs from the meat as it is sliced off the grill, though other explanations are offered and none can be proved. It belongs to the same family as larb, the minced meat salad of Laos and north-east Thailand, and it is dressed in the same way; the difference is that the meat is grilled whole first and sliced, rather than minced. The defining ingredient is khao khua, sticky rice dry-roasted in a pan until it is deep gold and then pounded to a coarse powder. It gives the salad its nutty, toasted smell and its slightly gritty texture, and it soaks up the dressing of lime and fish sauce so that it clings to the meat. Without it the dish is simply a beef salad. The rest is heat, from dried chilli flakes, and herbs: sliced shallot, mint, spring onion, and phak chi farang, the saw-edged culantro that Isan cooking uses as freely as the rest of Thailand uses coriander. It is eaten with sticky rice, raw cabbage and long beans, and a bowl of tom saep, and it is one of the dishes that Isan migrants carried to Bangkok and the rest of the country in the twentieth century.
Khao khua keeps for a month in a sealed jar; make a larger quantity. Nam tok moo, with grilled pork neck, is made in exactly the same way.
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