Escape to Thailand: Beef Larb Recipe

by Three Blue Ducks Chef, Mark LaBrooy

What is Larb?

Larb or laab is a Thai and Laotian salad, composed of ground meat that can be cooked or raw, and mixed with lime juice, fish sauce, shallots, herbs, chili and sticky rice.

“Escape to Thailand with this aromatic chilli, coriander and lime larb recipe from Chef Mark LaBrooy”

Ingredients

Meat

• 400g provenir beef mince

Larb Cooking Sauce

• 1 cup sweet soy sauce
• 60g peeled ginger rough chop
• 3 long red chillies
• 5 cloves garlic peeled
• 30g galangal peeled rough chop
• ½ bunch coriander root
• 30ml sesame oil
• 2 kaffir lime leaves
• 1 tsp shrimp paste
• 20 ml fish sauce
• 20 ml black vinegar

Stir Fry Vegetables

• 2 tbl sesame oil
• ½ red onion finely sliced
• 200g green beans chopped into 1 cm lengths
• 2 medium sized bok choy diced
• ½ bunch coriander tops rough chop
• ¼ bunch mint rough chop
• 1 lime zest and juice

Pickled Daikon

• 150g daikon dice
• 100ml water
• 25g sugar
• 50 ml white wine vinegar
• 10g salt
• 1 cups jasmine rice cooked
• Fried onions, white and dark sesame seeds to garnish

Method

Take a small saucepan and heat up your vinegar, water and sugar.

Take off the heat and add the salt. Stir until all of the sugar and salt has dissolved, then add the daikon. Put in the fridge to use later.

Next, take all of the ingredients for the cooking sauce and add them into a thermomix. Blitz on high for 2.5 mins. Set aside.

Then, take a large skillet and place on high heat. Add the sesame oil and beef. Fry off the beef until you see some nice browning and caramelisation.

Next, add the cooking sauce and cook and caramelise into the beef for 5-8 mins. Remove from the pan and put aside in a bowl.

Next add another tbl sesame oil to the skillet. Add red onions and cook for 2 mins. Then add the green beans and cook for a further 5 mins, or until soft but not to soft.

Then, add the bok choy and cook for a further min before you add the rest of the stir fry ingredients. Then add the beef with all the sauce and toss in.

Add the pickled daikon and serve immediately with rice. Garnish with fried onions and white and dark sesame seeds.

About Chef, Mark LaBrooy

Mark LaBrooy is a Chef and Co-Owner of popular restaurant group, Three Blue Ducks.

As one of three original founding members, Mark began Three Blue Ducks in 2010 following a career that landed him in positions across lauded Sydney restaurants including Sydney Opera House, Tetsuyas and international venues such as the progressive Zurich-based restaurant, Josef.

Finding instant success with the launch of the Ducks’ first Bronte cafe in 2010, Mark realised the premise of the venue had long-term appeal when it became the first cafe to ever be invited to the Good Food Guide restaurant awards under a new category for ‘best breakfast’.

Three Blue Ducks venues have gone on to win awards within Gourmet Traveller’s Best Regional Restaurant category and were awarded a hat in the 2018 Good Food Guide.

Born from the desire to offer a more sustainable and ethical approach to Australian dining, Three Blue Ducks has created a legacy that encourages its community to “grow what you can, buy food mindfully, buy it locally, cook it thoughtfully and waste nothing where you can”, an ethos which now underpins all seven of the group’s venues across  NSW, VIC and QLD.

Mark has co-written three books with co partner, Darren Robertson – The Blue Ducks (2012), Real Food (2014) and Blue Ducks in the Country (2017) – and is an OzHarvest ambassador. He is passionate about subsistence hunting, advocating to eat everything you catch and honour the animal by using all parts of it in cooking, wasting as little as possible.

For Mark, hunting is an important way of engaging with the environment, and becoming an advocate to protect it.

Mark is an avid motorcycle racer, cyclist, forager and surfer, but his proudest achievement to date is as a loving husband to wife, Hannah and daughter, Ava.