Khao Yam

School of Wok’s selected khao yam combines blue jasmine rice with raw vegetables, grapefruit, toasted coconut and dried-shrimp floss. Its southern Thai rice salad is dressed with a cooked mixture of fermented fish sauce, palm sugar and tamarind.

Dried butterfly pea flowers steep in boiling water and are removed before their blue infusion cooks the washed rice. Extra water can top up the rice pan, followed by simmering and covered steaming.

A separate lemongrass stalk, shallots and garlic are pounded into a rough paste. The paste fries in vegetable oil before fish sauce, palm sugar and tamarind enter and simmer into a slightly thickened dressing.

Dried fermented shrimp are toasted and ground into fine floss. Coconut toasts in the same dry pan, while cabbage, carrot, long beans, chilies, grapefruit and the remaining lemongrass are prepared separately.

Cooled rice sits in the centre of a platter surrounded by the vegetables and fruit. Toasted coconut, shrimp floss and the cooled dressing finish the arrangement before everything is tossed together for serving.