Nam Tok, is a Thai northeastern dish, usually served with sticky rice (or regular Jasmine rice) and fresh vegetables. It’s one of my favourite dishes as it’s fast and easy to make, & the ingredients are easy to find and yet, and yet the dish is full of Thai flavours. It’s so easy to make too. You're basically just grilling meat, seasoning and tossing into a salad.

I made this with pork but it’s lovely with steak too, and especially good to make if you have a leftover steak that is not heavily seasoned, you can easily turn it into nam tok.

Makes: 5 Servings

Ingredients:

-700g sliced pork shoulder (or beef tenderloin)

-2 tablespoons soy sauce

-1 teaspoon ground black peppercorns (or white pepper)

-1 tablespoon sesame oil

-Pinch of palm sugar (optional)

-3 tablespoons fish sauce

-2 tablespoons tamarind paste

-2 thinly sliced spring onions

-3 sprigs coriander thinly sliced

-1 thinly sliced lemongrass stalk

-15 sprigs mint leaves thinly sliced

-3 teaspoons ground dried chilis

-1 sliced shallot or red onion very thinly sliced

-2 limes squeezed

-4 tablespoons toasted rice (see note)

Instructions:

-Mix meat, sesame oil, soy sauce and pepper in a bowl with pork and marinate 10 minutes-1 hour.

-Grill meat until cooked. Let it sit to room temperature.

-Peel the shallots or onion and finely slice. Finely slice the green onions mint leaves, coriander leaves, lemongrass & mint leaves. I like to use sharp kitchen scissors for this to get them extremely thin.

-In a mixing bowl add the fish sauce, sugar, tamarind, chilli flakes, lime juice, shallots, spring onions, coriander, lemongrass and mint leaves. Doesn't matter which order, just toss everything together and mix it well.

-Next add the meat, mix all ingredients together, and then taste test. It should be sour, salty and spicy to taste, with a freshness from the herbs. Add more lime juice, chilli or fish sauce as needed.

-To make the roasted rice, put (raw) rice (preferably jasmine) in a pan and heat on high, constantly stirring so the rice won't burn. When the rice is golden brown, remove and grind into coarse powder using a mortar. Add the rice to the salad and briefly mix it in.

-Serve with sticky rice or Jasmine rice and fresh veggies.

Nutritional info (per serving):

Calories: 260

Protein: 35g

Carbs: 12g

Fat: 8g