This week from Bon Appetit I’ve decided to try Andy Baraghani’s mushroom larb recipe (with some adjustments). Larb is not the type of asian food I grew up with but I have had it at restaurants as a traditional ground meat dish with lettuce or rice noodles. I remember my aunt called it ‘ants on a raft’ which was so odd to me but it makes sense really. I’m not a huge fan of Andy’s videos but he makes great recipes and dishes that I’m truly interested in so it’s worth watching. It’s also a "feel good food plan” recipe so it’s relatively healthy and easy to make so I thought I would give it a shot.
In this recipe, Andy uses shiitake which are kinda pricey so I went with a cheaper baby bella. I missed the scallions in the recipe so I ended up not adding that and I also skipped the chile because I forgot to grab something but compensated by adding a chile powder. Not the same at all but it gave my dish a little kick and I got the spirit of the dish so that’s good enough for me.
This dish is honestly super easy to make, I prepped the mushrooms, shallot, and garlic and got to cooking. The recipe notes to not touch the pan for 5mins to let the mushrooms get really crisp and while I let the mushrooms go closer to 7mins, my pan was quite small for the amount and I didn’t quite get the crispness that I was looking for. The mushrooms did deflate and get very nicely brown but just not that crisp.I added the shallot and garlic and cooked it until they were soft and smelled really good and then I tossed with the fish sauce, peanuts, chile powder, and salt to taste. Now, Andy adds the scallions, not the shallot into the pan to cook off but I’m not a fan of raw shallot so I’m glad I made that decision. It would’ve been nice for a little green to have the scallion and maybe some mint like they say in the recipe but I’m not a huge fan of mint so I didn’t miss it that much. I’ve been scarred by too much raw mint and thai basil as a child I don’t feel that need for it that much in my cooking now. Maybe I’ll outgrow that because the flex of green really do brighten the dish up.
Overall, I loved the smell and taste of this mushroom larb. The fish sauce brought me back and made me quite happy in my apartment. Honestly, i was missing the texture of the meat a little more since the mushroom didn’t quite get crisp. I suppose I could do a smaller cut next time and work in a bigger pan to crisp it up. Or I could just buy some ground meat. It was a simple dish to make and super easy to eat as well. Wrapping the larb in lettuce reminded me of being home and all the wraps in Vietnamese food so that was really really nice. Would make again, maybe more traditionally with meat. Good flavors and simple.