Thai Laap Bpet

The chopped laap salad with duck meat, which is called “laap pet” (ลาบเป็ด) in Thai, is one of my absolute favorite dishes in Thai cuisine. I had tried my hand at it some time ago, but the result back then was nothing like a real laap, as I had only finely chopped the meat . However, the secret of a good laap is to finely chop the meat.

Thanks to Fischi’s chopping board, chopping knife and chopping motivation, we were finally well equipped last Friday to try our hand at preparing a laap together again. So we covered the dining table and chairs with a wax tablecloth and chopped for all we were worth. And we are really proud of the result , because our laap doesn’t need to hide behind that of a good Thai restaurant such as the “Krua Thai” in Karlsruhe!

Recommended Cleaver at amazon.de¹

Preparation

First, prepare the Roasted Rice Powder, or perhaps you have some left over from the last laap.

Then briefly rinse the duck breasts and pat dry. Remove the fatty skin and set aside, don’t throw it away!

And now comes the hard part: cut the duck breast into strips and then finely chop them with a cleaver until the meat has a consistency somewhere between minced meat and pâté. This can take around 15-20 minutes. Keep turning the meat over so that you get everything. Proceed in the same way with the second duck breast.

While the second duck breast is being minced, or if your arm hurts, take a break from mincing and fry the two fatty skins in a pan, slowly releasing the fat . When they are golden and less than half the size, remove both from the pan, cut into strips and set aside.

Remove the stalks from the chillies and deep-fry them in the rendered duck fat. After a few minutes, add the remaining lime leaves to the fat and deep-fry them too. When the chilies are dark brown and the leaves are crispy, remove both from the oil and leave to cool on a piece of kitchen paper.

Pour half of the remaining fat into a second pan. Now fry the minced duck breast briefly in one of the pans at the same time. At the same time peel and finely chop the shallots, remove the mint leaves from the stalks and tear into small pieces.

Divide the skin strips between the pans and add a shallot to each pan, mix everything well and continue to fry.

Season with a dash of fish sauce, the juice of half a lime and the desired amount of chili powder. Now divide the rice powder between the pans and mix everything well again.

Then add the fried chilies and lime leaves to the pans and mix them in too. Finally, lower the heat and scatter the mint leaves over the top.

Now leave the laap to cool for a few minutes. You can use the resulting free time to slice the cucumber.

Place the laap on plates and garnish with cucumber slices and mint leaves. Serve with rice. The fried chilies can be crumbled when eating to make the salad even spicier and the lime leaves can also be eaten.