Andy Makes Mushroom Larb with Peanuts

[groans jokingly]

Is this for your video?

What's he doing over here?

No, sorry.

Your video's over there, bro.

What are you cooking?

Beef and bacon stew.

Ah, yes.

[pan sizzling]

Beef and bacon stew.

That sounds great.

Beef and bacon, B B basic.

Basic bacon and beef stew. [laughs]

[light, fun music]

Today we're making mushroom larb,

part of the Feel Good Food plan.

And I just thought it's something

that would work really well,

a mushroom mimicking the meat

but going with those intense, spicy,

sour, funky fish sauce flavors

that you usually typically see in larb,

which is usually done with ground meat.

But, in replacing ground meat,

we're gonna be using shiitake mushrooms.

Okay.

I have 12 ounces of shiitake mushrooms.

I'm gonna take the stems off.

We're just gonna do this for a bit.

I can do a few different accents, too.

[Ben] Where are you from again?

What did you say?

I'm from California. [laughs]

So these are really big shiitake caps,

so I am gonna actually cut them into 1/2-inch pieces.

This dish comes together in

10, 15 minutes, but it's the prep, there's a little bit

of prep time with taking the caps off

and chopping the mushrooms.

But once you do all your prep, your mise en place,

then it all comes together really quickly.

I am not an authority figure in Thai food but

I love Thai food.

This is, I would never say, a true larb,

but these are the aromatics that I love from that dish

and just making a slightly lighter version.

Okay, we have our mushrooms cut.

I'm gonna chop these peanuts.

These are roasted peanuts.

I'm just gonna give a rough chop.

Ha-ha-hash tag rough chop.

If you could find them with the skins,

I love that, but they're a little bit harder to find.

So we have the mushrooms chopped, the peanuts chopped.

I'm going to slice three scallions.

[Ben] Be careful.

Oh, about what?

Are you scared?

Don't worry, young Padawan.

Are you Star Wars, Lord of the Rings,

or what's the other one?

[Ben laughs]

I feel like-- Harry Potter?

Or Harry Potter, yeah.

No, no, I feel like there's like, those are the three.

[Ben] What are you?

I would say

that I am Star Wars, definitely.

But I did read all the Harry Potter books

and I've seen all the movies, and that was my generation.

But I'm Star Wars, I...

Yeah, Star Wars.

I'm taking a one-inch piece of ginger

that's been peeled, and I'm grating that.

I'm gonna take one small shallot,

trim the ends,

peel.

Who would you be in Seinfeld, Ben?

[Ben] I would wanna be Kramer, but I'm not sure.

You wanna be Kramer?

Why would you wanna be Kramer?

[Ben] He's always secretly cool.

He's got secret powers that people don't know about,

so he's good at things.

That's true.

[Ben] He's a mysterious guy.

Yeah.

[Ben] Who would you be?

I think who I'd wanna be is different than who I am.

I'm probably Elaine.

[woman and Ben laugh]

But I'd like to be Jerry.

Cutting shallots into rounds.

[knife chopping against board]

I'm just gonna pop these shallots

into rounds and then give them a bit of a rinse.

I give them a rinse just so,

to get rid of that really intense,

aggressive, shalloty flavor.

Just softens them a bit, mellows them out.

And then we're gonna take one chile.

You could use jalapeno, Fresno,

Holland, Thai chilies, it depends on how much heat.

This is a Fresno chile.

It's not that spicy.

[knife chopping against board]

I'm gonna add that to the bowl with the shallots.

And then we'll go over here.

We have four tablespoons of oil.

We're gonna add three tablespoons right now.

We're gonna heat this over medium high,

and you're gonna wait till the oil is shimmering

and the pan is really, really hot

before we add the mushrooms.

So you have your hot oil going.

I'm using a nonstick skillet.

That's ideal, a large nonstick skillet,

just so you don't have anything sticking.

I'm gonna add the mushrooms just all at once.

You should hear them fry.

And they're all topped together right now,

and they're gonna steam for a bit and then eventually brown.

We're gonna give this a little bit of a toss,

and then just let that go for about three, four minutes

until they shrink and start to brown on the bottom

before you give it another shake.

So this is the two-minute mark.

We're gonna go for another three minutes.

You can see the mushrooms are already shrinking.

Again, don't touch the pan.

You really want to have the mushrooms brown on the bottom,

and it takes some time.

It just takes some time.

It just takes time.

When you added the mushrooms in the beginning,

they were all on top of one another,

so they were steaming for the first bit.

And now they're slowly starting to brown properly,

so if you keep tossing them, they never really brown.

And I don't salt the mushrooms until later

'cause I really want them to be able to brown.

The salt's gonna prevent them to brown the way I

would like them 'cause if you salt them,

they're gonna start releasing their water,

and then they'll just steam and never get the color

that you want.

It's been the five-minute mark,

so we're gonna give this a toss.

You can see how they brown really nicely.

We're gonna let them go for another few minutes undisturbed.

Okay, we're gonna keep cooking.

So right now, the mushrooms have shrunk

pretty much by like 50%.

We're gonna let them go for another two minutes.

You see how they're, some of them have browned

and gotten crispy?

We're gonna keep going.

I'm gonna add the remaining tablespoon of oil,

[pan sizzling]

our scallions,

and our ginger and garlic.

I'm gonna give that

a toss.

You might have to take a wooden spoon

and get the ginger and garlic incorporated throughout.

This is already really fragrant

with the garlic and scallions.

You just wanna make sure that garlic

and ginger is mixed throughout

so you don't get any big pieces of it.

I'm gonna season this slightly with salt.

And then I'm gonna turn off the heat,

and I'm gonna add the shallots and chile.

[pan sizzles]

I'm gonna add half the nuts.

That's off heat, sorry.

And one tablespoon of fish sauce.

[pan sizzles]

I'm gonna take the mint and peanuts, go off heat.

I have a quarter head of green cabbage and some lime.

I'm just gonna be serving the larb with cabbage.

I just like to separate the leaves out like this,

and then, with the lime,

I'm just gonna do little cuts like this.

[knife chopping against board]

I'm gonna add one cup of mint leaves.

If they're large, you can tear them up.

And then I'm just gonna give it a taste.

It might need a bit more salt.

We have the fish sauce in there, but...

I'm gonna double dip.

Just a bit more salt.

It's really spicy.

If you don't like it this spicy,

I would go with half the chile.

But I really love it.

It's super intense

with all the aromatics, with the mint

and scallions and shallots and the chilies.

It's really in your face, it's not subtle at all.

Place the mushrooms.

And then we'll just place the cabbage leaves like this,

some limes,

I'll give it a little squeeze,

and then we'll add the remaining peanuts.

I'm gonna give this a try.

I'm gonna give this a squeeze of lime.

I would also serve this with a bowl of rice,

but you don't have to.

And if you don't have cabbage,

you could do lettuce if you like.

But I like the crunch of the cabbage.

[cabbage crunches]

The cabbage doesn't just add this crunch to it,

but it also mellows the heat a bit.

We have a lot of texture from not

just the cabbage but the peanuts.

It's great to add them both towards the end and on top.

Again, if you don't have a high tolerance for heat,

I would start with half the chile

because this one's really spicy.

I love this dish.

It ended up becoming one of our favorites

from the Feel Good Food plan.

And, while there's a good amount of chopping

in the beginning with the prep,

it all comes together really quickly at the end.

And hopefully you guys will enjoy making it.

[cabbage crunches]

What does that mean, like I'm Han Solo and you're Fredo?

Is it Fredo, is that his name?

Fredo? Fredo is from The Godfather.

Ah, well I'd take Godfather out of all of them.

[pans banging in distance]

I could do, I'm gonna make him an offer he can't refuse.

That's pretty good.

[Ben] [speaks indistinctly] with a Southern accent.

No, come on!

That was good!