Omsom Larb Cooking Sauce

Name: Omsom Larb Cooking Sauce
Brand: Omsom
SKU: MSOMSTLARB
Price: 12.95 USD
Availability: OutOfStock
Rating: 4.8 (4 reviews)

$12.95

Larb is a popular minced meat salad that originated in Laos that’s traditionally made with lightly-poached ground chicken and a punchy sauce with layers of complex flavor. Omson’s Larb Meal Starter makes it easy and convenient to try your hand at the dish at home—with a blend that balances the savory funk of Red Boat fish sauce (one of Milk Street’s pantry staples) with vibrant, floral lime and fruity chili heat that immediately awakens the palate. A noticeable hit of sweetness rounds out the flavors, but it’s a far cry from the cloying taste found in many Americanized Thai dishes. The true secret to a traditional larb sauce’s unique flavor, though, is the toasted rice powder that’s stirred in at the end to add nutty depth. Keeping with their commitment to cultural integrity, Omson includes a package of the aromatic addition with every portion of sauce. Not too thick and perfectly drizzly, this version of the Thai staple is like nothing else on the market—made with no additives, preservatives and in collaboration with pro chefs Chat and Ohm Suansilphong of NYC’s Fish Cheeks restaurant.

Ingredients

Ingredients: Red Boat fish sauce, lime juice, cane sugar, Thai dried chili flakes, toasted rice powder
Specifications

Net Weight: Contains 3 Larb sauce starters—1.8 ounces each and 3 Toasted Rice Powder packets—0.3 ounces each
Place of Origin: New York
How to use

The Omsom team tapped chefs Chat and Ohm Suansilphong of Manhattan’s Fish Cheeks to develop a sauce that was both flavorful and elevated. Their restaurant focuses on celebrating the true Thai flavors they learned from their upbringing and education in Bangkok.

And it seems to be going well, too—acclaimed New York Times critic gave the eatery a sought-after 1 star review in 2016. “In a country where most Thai cuisine has been made very sweet to match mainstream American palates, the Suansilphong brothers eschew that path for the road less taken,” says the Omsom team.

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HOW TO USE

Called a “meal starter” by the Omsom team, this sauce is all you need to flavor traditional Thai larb (and it’s even easier since that sauce comes with a recipe for the dish)—gently sautee your meat until just-cooked before removing from the heat and tossing with scallion, chopped cilantro and mint, thinly sliced shallot, the larb starter sauce and the toasted rice packet. You can also use the sauce to flavor ground meat like pork, chicken or tofu or sauteed veggies like green beans, diced potato, carrots and cauliflower. It’s also ideal for dunking dumplings and drizzling over lettuce cups, simply add oil for richness, extra chiles for more heat and extra lime or sugar for brightness.

Kitchen Notes

Each sauce package says it serves two, which makes sense if the meal in mind features a hefty amount of, say, tofu and not much else, but we find that it can stretch further if you plan on supplementing your sauced protein with sides and salads—up to four servings.