Larb without rice?

Cooking Discussions Cooking, Cookbooks, Ingredients
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Or how about without sticky rice? I love pork larb, and want to make some tonight, but couldn’t find sticky rice. I have other rice at home, so ideas about subbing would be welcomed, but I’m wondering if I can enjoy it without the toasted rice. I’m sure I can, but am I missing something? I remember making it with toasted rice years ago, and not especially liking the texture it added. I seem to remember it seemed a bit grainy.

I am at work and need to get off for awhile, but here is what I’ve found so far.

NYT is probably behind a paywall, but says “Whatever you do, don’t skip it!”

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This pork larb recipe from NYT says it will still be delicious without rice. It uses jasmine rice.

This one says Jasmine rice is okay too.

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Serious Eats says " other varieties of sticky short-grain rice, such as sushi and risotto rice, will not work as a substitute here."

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We accidentally (H) ordered the sticky rice. It’s very sticky, also quite compacted. Give me regular Thai Jasmine any day. But H seemed to like it. You could totally do larb w/o any kind of rice. I happen to love the toasted rice powder, but ours didn’t have it this time. It is a bit gritty & I can well understand why some don’t like it. As far as making your own, I think you could grind and toast just about any rice. I’d advise against black or red rice though.

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Aaaaand we are back to “cooking during a power outage”.

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You can make it without toasted rice, but it will be missing an element of texture and flavor both.

That said, I use whatever rice I have on hand and it has worked fine - usually basmati (sorry SE).

Good luck with the outage - sorry to hear it’s a regular thing.

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