Laos: vegan khao piak sen

Welcome to a virtual trip to Laos where we cook a vegan Laos dish in the form of vegan khao piak sen, a rice noodle soup where the hero is a fragrant broth full of Southeast Asian flavours like lemongrass, lime leaves and galangal.

Laotian cuisine

Laos lies in Southeast Asia, between Myanmar, Vietnam and Thailand and has many similar flavours and dishes. In Laos, the people often eat cow, pig, chicken and fresh water fish (it is a landlocked country after all). On the for herbivores more interesting side, we find plants like papaya, tomato, coconut, onion, mushrooms, and eggplant. Food is often flavoured with fresh spices like chili, ginger and garlic and fragrant plants such as lemon grass, lime leaves, galangal, mint, and coriander. Fish sauce, a sauce similar to soy sauce made by fermenting dried fish, is used to add an umami component to many dishes ​[1], [2]​. There are vegan brands of fish sauce out there but I have yet to try one. Instead, soysauce, seaweed and dried mushrooms make a quick substitute.

One corner stone of Laotian food culture is sticky rice, eaten at almost every meal and often eaten on its own, wrapped in banana leaves as a portable lunch ​​[3]​​. Sticky rice, also known as glutinous rice (nothing to do with gluten though), is a cultivar (subspecies of plants) of rice with a special composition of its starches ​ making it absorb water and create a gel rather than dissolve in the water ​[4]​.

Laotian dishes

Apart from sticky rice, laap (or larb) is often named the country’s national dish. This salad is usually made with raw meat and plenty of herbs and is served almost all the time. You can try and make a vegan version by substituting the meat for tofu ​[5]​ or tempeh ​[6]​. Other salads are also popular, such as a yam het, a warm mushroom salad with mint, lemon grass and soy sauce. Laos is also famous for its green papaya salad where sliced, unripe papaya is served with chili, peanuts and lime ​[7]​.

Khao lam is an interesting streetfood where sticky rice is cooked in coconut milk together with red or black beans and then stuffed into a bamboo tube and roasted ​[8]​.

Soups, and in particular noodle soups, are a usual sight in Southeast Asia and the Laotian cuisine is no different. Noodle soups come in many different varieties, centred around noodles and fragrant flavours like fresh herbs, lemon grass and lime leaves. Fer, the Laotian variety of the more famous Vietnamese pho, is a beef noodle soup with fresh herbs while khao poon adds coconut milk and red curry paste ​[9]​.

Khao piak sen

For this virtual visit to Laos, I chose to make a vegan khao piak sen. Khao piak sen (lit. rice wet noodles) is a rice noodle soup with chicken, usually eaten for breakfast ​[10]​. It has a very fragrant broth, full of Laotian flavour elements such as lemon grass, lime leaves, galangal, coriander and ginger while fresh red chilies add a lot of heat. The traditional way of making the soup is to make your own hand rolled noodles with rice flour and tapioca starch ​[11], [12]​ but I opted out of this and used store bought rice noodles ​[13]​.

Galangal

Galangal is root similar to ginger but more peppery, a bit floral and with strong tones of pine. It can be found fresh in the fridge or freezer section of many East Asian and Southeast Asian grocery stores. Alternately, you might be able to find it dry.

Conclusion

This Laotian stock is full of complex Southeast Asian flavours and is a great base for many different soups. Try with rice noodles as in the original khao piak sen or some other ingredients, like rice for khao piak khao ​[14]​ (rice wet rice) or dumplings ​[13]​. The stock is a great start and I’ll definitely be making it again as a base for Southeast Asian vegan soups.

Print

Khao piak sen

This Laotian noodle soup is made from complex broth full of traditional Southeast Asian flavours such as lemon grass and lime leaves.

Course Main Course, Soup

Cuisine Laotian, Southeast Asian

Keyword Noodles, soup

Prep Time 10 minutes minutes

Cook Time 30 minutes minutes

Servings 4

Ingredients

• 1 Onion
• 5 cloves garlic, sliced
• 3 cm ginger, sliced
• 3 cm galangal, sliced optional
• 2 stalks lemon grass
• 5 lime leaves
• 1-2 red chilies to desired spice level
• 1-2 green chilies
• 3 tbsp oil, e.g. canola
• 10 stalks fresh coriander
• 2 tbsp light soy sauce
• 1 sheet sea weed optional
• 5 dried mushrooms optional
• 1 tbsp vegetable stock powder or 1 cube
• 1 Lime, juice from
• 300 g rice noodles

Instructions

• Soak the mushrooms in boiling water for 10-15 min.
• Optional: cut onion into quarters and char in a hot cat iron pan without oil. Also char half of the ginger. This adds some complexity to the broth
• Coarsely chop the onion.
• Cut the lemon grass and crush it in a mortar.
• tear the leaves from the coriander stalks
• Heat the oil to a high temperature in a pot and fry the onion. Add garlic at the end. See note.
• Add all other ingredients except coriander leaves, noodles and water. Stir until heated through.
• Add 1 L water and stock cube/powder as well as the mushrooms with their soaking liquid.
• Simmer for 20-30 minutes.
• When stock has simmered, add the noodles and cook until they are ready.
• Finish the soup with fresh lime juice and the reserved coriander leaves.

Notes

Frying the onion: Khao piak sen is often made with deep fried onion and garlic oil. Frying at high temperature and then cooking in the oil mimics this tradition while saving some time.