One of the best perks and blessings of living and serving the Lord in this fascinating country of Thailand is the fabulous food available here.
No offense to my dear friends in PNG, but your sago grub worms:
eeew
and taro roots cannot compare to the tantazling variety of spicy, savory, intensely flavored dishes we are enjoying here. There is such a variety too, we keep discovering new foods and generally like most everything. Of course, we have found dishes that are one-time only experiences too, but I have ‘falang’ food that I choose not to eat too! 
Today I want to share how to make one of my favorite dishes, Sabueak. It is a traditional Lawa dish, served at special occasions such as weddings, but it is easy to make and very tasty!
Ingredients:
Chicken (1 whole one cut in large pieces, or enough for your family. It is good to have some pieces with the bones still attached to make a tastier broth)
Lemongrass–5 stalks (slice 3 stalks very thinly and cut the remaining two into three large pieces each)
small red onions or shallots –5, sliced thinly
fresh cilantro –2 large bunches with roots attached if possible
green onion –1 large bunch
mint leaf –1 small bunch
small piece of galangal (similar to ginger)
2 bouillon cubes or soup base of an equal amount
salt
dried peppers (the large red kind)
Cut off the roots from the cilantro and gently pound to release the scent.
Boil enough water to cover your chicken and add the pounded cilantro roots, one third of the cilantro leaves, large lemongrass pieces and piece of galangal.
When water is boiling, add chicken and slowly simmer until chicken is done.
While chicken is cooking, slice up cilantro,mint, lemongrass, red onions and green onions.
You can see my handy chopper in the background, but do not try to chop your lemongrass with it! Lemongrass is sort of hard and woody and really need to be sliced as thin as possible.
Clockwise from the top, cilantro, red shallots/onions. lemongrass, and in the little bowl, the mint leaves
After chicken is done, and cooled enough to handle, coarsely chop. You want the chicken to be in small pieces, not shredded.
The truly authentic way is to chop up the skin too, to make it ’softer’, but I left it out of mine. You can do whichever you prefer. The skin does add extra flavor though, but unfortunately, extra fat as well.
In a large bowl, mix the chopped chicken with the sliced vegetables and mix together with 3/4 tsp of salt and finely chopped dried peppers –how much you add depends on how spicy you want it!
Tada! This is one thing everyone in my family likes to eat. Hmm, I think I need to add it to the menu next week, looking at these pictures is making me hungry!
(The pepper can also be used as a garnish, so each can decide if they want spice or not.)
Add one large ladle of the chicken broth at a time, mixing it in until the chicken mixture is thoroughly moist, but not so there is ’standing water’.
Serve with rice and the rest of the soup.
Enjoy!
P.S. If you prefer to have the chili peppers as a garnish instead of mixed in, here is a tasty
way to prepare them.
Grind up the pepper in your blender or hand mill.
Heat a small amount of oil, maybe 2 tsp to quite hot, nearly smoking. Pour into the
pepper and mix until thoroughly combined. Use as much as you can handle!
Shannon’s already has lots of other posts up, if this is not what you were looking for, I am sure someone else has posted something just for you!
Happy Wednesday!
