morsels45

morsels45 said

Tea leaf salad

Fermented tea leaves, crunchy beans, tomato. Savoury, sour and awake.

Tea leaf salad
Photo: ReflectedSerendipity from United Kingdom, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons. A photo of the dish, not of these exact recipes.

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How to make tea leaf salad

2 genuinely different takes — a classic, and a faster or lighter route. The same ones the app hands you once you have decided.

Lahpet thoke

20 minutes · serves 4 · Easy

What you need

  • 4 tbsp fermented tea leaf paste
  • 100g fried broad beans
  • 50g fried split peas
  • 50g peanuts
  • 2 tomatoes, diced
  • 1/4 white cabbage, shredded
  • 3 garlic cloves, sliced and fried
  • 2 limes
  • Fish sauce
  • Sesame seeds

What you do

  1. 1Keep every element in its own pile until the last moment — half the pleasure is the contrast and it goes soft if it sits dressed.
  2. 2Fry the sliced garlic in oil until pale gold and lift it out at once; it keeps browning off the heat.
  3. 3At the table: tea leaf in the middle, everything else round it, then tossed hard for a full 20 seconds.
  4. 4Lime and fish sauce to taste. It should be sour, salty, bitter and crunchy all at the same time.

Without the fermented leaf

15 minutes · serves 4 · Very easy

What you need

  • 4 tbsp strong brewed green tea leaves, squeezed dry
  • 2 tbsp sesame oil
  • Fried beans, peanuts, sesame
  • Cabbage, tomato
  • Lime
  • Fish sauce
  • Garlic

What you do

  1. 1Steep the leaves 10 minutes, squeeze them out, chop and dress with sesame oil and a little lime.
  2. 2Build and toss as above. Less funk, same crunch.