Minced Beef Salad à la Thailand

I have been dreaming to go to Thailand and the rest of Indochina, and while enjoying my stay there, i would indulge my tongue with the best local food, surrounded by smiley people (as i was told by friends). Yeah, because in Indonesia, people have becoming too materialistic, you don't get that sincere smile like you used too 10 years ago.

Despite their materialistic brain and attitude, i would prepare 10 millions forgiveness for my own country. A country where in the past, all the south east Asian kingdoms would dream of having an ally with, but now is drowning in poverty, degradation of moral, attacked by terrorists and natural disaster. A country which capital was being exploded by 3 bombs yesterday. ....Suicide bomb by terrorist.

Again..... and there was this moment of silent of me, in the morning just after i found out about the tragedy through my friends' statuses in facebook. How? Why?...... Bastards!!!!

But as far as i know, the Indonesians are strong, they will get by and survive like it was never happened. Turn out the following day (today), all the malls in Jakarta are already full again, because of this is a long weekend. Experts predict that we will get on our feet again, and the stock exchange will not be strongly effected as it is still closed until Tuesday.

I am really sorry for the victims. I remember that my junior high school friend was one of them years ago, at the same hotel which they bombed yesterday. I did not know him that well, but i read from a newspaper that he had to reschedule his wedding which was supposed to take place 15 days from the explosion day. I think he postponed it during a year, for his recovery and all of the plastic surgeries, but now they have a twin boy-girl. Don't we all believe that good things come to those who wait?

Okay, back to food and recipe....this is a recipe that i made the day after my birthday. As usual, i forgot to post it. The original recipe is using minced duck meat (i did not have any thus i replace it with minced beef meat). To celebrate my birthday, Gorilla and I went to Paris to see the tropical carnival of Paris, where later on that day, they announced that Indonesian delegation won for the best decorated truck. Then he bought me a netbook, which i have been longing for quite a long time, as my birthday presents (this guy gave up giving surprise presents, for the stupid reasons that it did not work well). Then to finish the day, we went to our fav. Thai restaurant, and he ordered this duck salad, which tastes like heaven. I found the recipe in the Thai recipe book that he gave me also for my last year birthday (Laap Pet,Thaïlande Saveurs du bout du monde, Michael Lafon,2007)

LAAP PET
Ingredients:

• 1 tbs Thailand uncooked rice
• 200 gr minced meat
• 2 tbs of green lemon juice
• 1 tbs fish sauce
• 1 lemon grass, take the hard skin out (outer leaf), sliced thinly the white part.
• 2 big shallots
• 2 leaves of kaffir, chopped
• 3 white onions, sliced
• 3 Asian chillies, sliced thinly
• 1 tbs mint leaves (i used dry simply because i did not have the fresh one)

Ingredients:

1. Heat a pan, add 1 tbs of cooking oil, and add the rice, cook until they turn golden brown. Using your mortar, grind them until smooth.
2. In the same pan, cook the meat, lemon juice and fish sauce, until the meat is dry.
3. In a serving bowl, mix all of the ingredients before serving.