After the ubiquitous chillie, the most important ingredient in Lao cuisine is smoke.

Combine the two and the result is culinary alchemy, infusing dishes with spice and deep charred flavours. Grilling over charcoal is an essential technique and is commonly used when preparing shallots, garlic, tomatoes, mushrooms, galangal, and lemongrass before adding them to jaew dips, soups and curries.

Here’s a quick quartet of quirky transport from markets in Laos.

There is always a rare assortment of vehicles in various states of disrepair, laden with anything from fruits and vegetables to ducks, chickens and pigs.

Whatever it is, it’ll fit on a motorcycle.

A favourite breakfast dish here in Laos is khao jee pâté. Variations are also popular in Vietnam where it is known as bánh mì and in Cambodia, nom pang.

Laotians enthusiastically accepted the baguette when it was introduced during the French colonial period. In Vientiane, baguettes are sold on street corners and in the local markets but with a distinctly local twist. Warmed over a charcoal brazier, split down the middle, smeared with pâté and stuffed with pork, raw papaya, pickled vegetables and a lick of hot chilli sauce, the baguettes make a satisfying breakfast when served with thick, sweet Lao coffee.

I recently spent an afternoon doing shots khao jee pâté for Stockfood. The great thing about stock food photography is that you get to eat your work.

I’ve just spent the afternoon photographing maeng da edible giant water beetles, a popular ingredient in northeast Thai and Lao food.

You can learn more about maeng da on an earlier post here

Here’s a quick one for lovers of pho. The Vietnamese dish is also a staple in Laos.

My favourite, however, is khao piek sen, a chewier noodle tossed in a tapioca flour which makes the soup a little more glutinous too. With the cool weather we’ve been having lately, it’s the perfect breakfast dish.

But then again…there’s jaew makok.

Makok, often referred to as a Lao/Thai olive, is the fruit from the spondia tree. The sour fruit is used in Issan somtam or tam mak hung in Lao. When grilled over charcoal the thin layer of pulp around the stone is also be used in a delicious jaew or dip, along with shallots, garlic, chillies and crispy pig skin. The young leaves of the tree are also eaten uncooked with many dishes.

Jaew makok makes a great accompaniment with ginger marinated and grilled catfish.

A Lao laab is a beautiful thing. One of my favourite dishes.

The fresh markets of Vientiane are colourful, chaotic and full of characters. Shoppers, and photographers, are spoiled for choice and there are many markets to explore.

Most open either in the early morning and are done by 11 a.m. or in the late afternoon and stay until dusk. Of course there are also several markets specializing in cooked food that open around 5 p.m. until late.

There’s an abundance of fresh fruits and vegetables imported from Thailand and China, but also masses of local seasonal produce.

You’ll see plenty of plenty of foraged food, rice field crabs, and insects.

When fried and garnish with pepper, kaffir lime leaves and fish sauce, the grasshoppers and smaller crickets make an excellent beer snack. Just think of them as a land shrimp and get stuck in.

Unfortunately a lot of vendors are now mixing powdered soup mix in with the crickets to enhance the flavour, (essentially heaps of salt and MSG and other stuff that shouldn’t be allowed near a tasty fried insect), so watch out for this.

There’s a considerable Vietnamese population in Vientiane so you’ll also see ladies selling treats like duck embryo.

The majority of Lao people still like cook at home (although the cooked food for sale in the markets is definitely increasing). and many shop for ingredients twice a day.

The most popular meat is pork but a considerable amount of beef is eaten.

There are some impressive butchery skills on show. Thankfully it’s a world away from the sterile supermarket experience which has yet to reach Laos (although I hear it’s coming very soon).

No Lao meal is complete without fish and the Mekong river delivers an astonishing variety. Firm favourites with diners are the fat-rich catfish.

A couple of weeks ago, I promised Madam Pla Daek another post about Lao food. I’ve been extremely busy though with lots of traveling, so apologies for the delay but here you go…I hope these images get your craving Lao food and heading for the kitchen.

In Laos cuisine there are numerous jaew, dips and relishes served to add a flavour boost and texture to a meal. Thailand has its nam phrik, Mexico salsa and mole, in Lao its jaew, and no meal is complete without at least a couple.

Most are very easy to make and many jaew revolve around a set of similar ingredients, namely chillies, shallots, garlic and tomato, with the addition of the star of the show. Most important when making any jaew is to grill the base ingredients over charcoal. Charring them until the are black adds an incredible smokiness and depth of flavour. Pounding with a granite pestle and mortar also gives nice chunky texture.

Several, such as mushroom, tomato and aubergines jaew are easily made wherever you are living in the world but there are other more obscure recipes which require Southeast Asian ingredients such as the one below made from nor ngare, a type of rattan.

There is also jaew maeng da made with grilled giant water beetles. If you are not from an insect eating country I realise you may find this a hard sell, but I urge you to try it.

The inner flesh of roasted maeng da is added to a number of dishes including the jaew below where it has been mixed with grilled fish, herbs, and of course chillies. The beetles are large, fragrant and flavour is extraordinary. The closest I can get to describing it is like a sweet I used to eat as a kid called pear drops. Try it…then try it again. As with any unfamiliar food or flavour,  give it time.

The most well known jaew is jaew bong, a sweet and sticky dip from northern Laos made with smoky dried chillies and buffalo skin. It’s absolutely delicious eaten with sin sawan, sun dried beef and ranks as one of my all time top beer snacks. More on these two at a later date.

Lao food gets a bad press, and I think it’s undeserved. Granted, the competition from neighbouring Thailand and Vietnam is stiff but there’s certainly plenty of delicious and interesting food worth discovering in landlocked Laos.

Unfortunately the restaurant scene hasn’t really developed and until relatively recently very few people went out to eat. Most of the country’s best cooks, therefore, are in the home. In the last few years a few night markets have popped up in Vientiane with home cooks selling a wide variety of jaew or dips, curries, soups and grilled meats and fish. This is where you will find the best food. Restaurant menus on the other hand still tend to be limited to standard fair with uninspired and oversized portions prepared with little care.

In common with northern and northeast Thailand, Lao eat mainly glutinous rice, a malleable steamed grain served at the table in woven baskets, although boiled fragrant rice is also eaten. Central to the Lao diet is a wide variety of freshwater fish which are steamed, grilled and fried, or made into a salad called goy pla. It is similar to the Thai laap and made with chopped river fish tossed in lime juice, dried chillis, fish sauce, toasted rice powder and herbs. A fermented fish paste known as pla daek is also used to flavour many dishes.

In Luang Prabang, regional dishes include the delicious aw laam, a kind of vegetable stew thickened with broken sticky rice and gently spiced with the addition of pieces of mai sakarn or pepperwood. It is traditionally made and at its best using dried buffalo meat but pork is also common (as is smoked and dried bamboo rat further north). There’s also sin savan, thin slices of sun-dried beef served with jaew bong, a roasted chilli paste, ua si khai, lemongrass stuffed with pork, gaeng som, a popular vibrant spicy and sour soup with fish, and stuffed frog.

The culinary landscape of Laos is no less effected by its past than is its architecture or its politics. In the late 60s and 70s, during the American war on Vietnam, many Vietnamese sought refuge in Laos. Today, the culinary tradition that they brought with them is very much part of the Lao food scene.

Vietnamese dishes include the ubiquitous pho, a comforting noodle soup of beef, buffalo, pork or chicken with liberal additions of fresh herbs and vegetables and, of course, fiery chillis, and many other noodle dishes.

Vietnamese favourites also include naem neaung, tasty little ‘do-it-yourself’ rice paper wraps to fill with grilled pork balls, lettuce and herbs, ban cuan, steamed rice flour sheets stuffed with pork and mushrooms and yor kao and yor jeun, fresh and fried spring rolls.

If you are interested in learning more about Lao food, the book Traditional Recipes of Laos by Phia Sing published by Prospect Books is worth getting.