Laap meatballs with tomato jeow sauce

We made Lao fusion food this week. Pork laap meatballs with tomato jeow sauce.

First we made the jeow - a smoky, spicy Lao dipping sauce.

We threaded the ingredients on to skewers - some tomatoes, shallots, garlic and chilli,

Sometimes it's hard putting the skewer through the shallots so you need to watch your fingers.

and put them on a barbecue to cook.

Once they were done, we put the shallots, garlic and chilli in a pestle and mortar and pounded them.

Then we took the skins off the tomatoes and also pounded them with the other ingredients.

With the jeow ready, except for some chopped spring onions and coriander - which we sprinkled over the final dish, we started the laap.

First we made the dry fried rice powder - frying rice and some slivers of kaffir lime leaves till very well done, then pounding them in a pestle and mortar.

We then chopped some pork shoulder finely and fried it with some garlic.

We added some fish sauce - traditionally Pa Dek - Lao fermented fish, but the choice was Nam Pa, although other options are Vietnamese fish sauce or soy sauce.

We also added a spoon of the dry fried rice powder we'd made earlier.

Then we finely chopped some spring onions and mint and tossed that through.

In order to make the meatballs from this laap, we added egg and flour and shaped the laap into balls. We fried these.

Heated up the jeow and poured it over.

And then sprinkled the herbs on top, before eating.