3 dishes people actually cook in Laos: what they are, how long they take, and what you need to buy.
What can you cook from Laos? 3 traditional Laos dishes, from Tam mak hoong (20 min, the quickest) to Khao piak sen (90 min, the longest). Each recipe is written step by step with full ingredient lists, free to read.
Laos on the map. Drag to spin the planet.
Hand-cut tapioca and rice noodles dropped straight into the broth, which their starch thickens as they cook.
Minced pork dressed with lime and padaek and bound with khao khua, the toasted glutinous rice powder that gives the salad its nutty grit.
Green papaya pounded in a tall mortar with padaek, the chunky fermented fish sauce that makes the dressing dark and funky.
Copper documents three dishes from Laos: Khao piak sen, Laap and Tam mak hoong. Fish sauce and galangal each appear in more than one recipe. Not one needs an oven — they cook entirely on the hob. Between them they use 25 different ingredients.
The three recipes need 25 ingredients between them, of which 5 are shared by more than one dish. Fish sauce and galangal the hardest to find: of the 586 dishes in Copper's atlas, 15 use fish sauce and 8 use galangal. Every ingredient list on this page is complete, with quantities, and free to read.
Tam mak hoong is the quickest at 20 minutes. Khao piak sen is the longest at 90 minutes. The median is 35 minutes — a weeknight, not a project.
Laap and Tam mak hoong are rated easy — start there. The full method is on each recipe page, step by step, free to read.
Laos is part of Southeast Asian.
Countries close to Laos on the globe — and close on the plate.
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