Mah Haw

Total Time: 16 mins Preparation Time: 8 mins Cook Time: 8 mins

Ingredients

• Servings: 10
• 1 teaspoon vegetable oil
• 1/2 lb coarsely ground lamb (i find spicy italian sausage works well)
• 2 tablespoons fish sauce
• 2 tablespoons palm sugar or 2 tablespoons brown sugar
• 1 medium pineapple (or 1 14 ounce can of pineapple chuncks)
• 6 slices long thin sweet red peppers
• 1/4 cup fresh cilantro leaves
• 1 teaspoon whole peppercorns or 1 teaspoon whole black peppercorn
• 2 tablespoons coarsely chopped fresh coriander, roots and stems or 2 tablespoons cilantro leaves, and stems
• 2 tablespoons coarsely chopped garlic

Recipe

• 1 first, make the pesto by: using a mortar and pestle or a spice grinder, crush or grind the peppercorns into a fine powder.
• 2 combine the pepper, cilantro and garlic and work into a fairly smooth paste in the mortar or in a small blender or food processor.
• 3 if you opt to use a blender or food processor, you may need to add a little vegetable oil or water to ease the grinding.
• 4 to keep the pesto for later use, put it in a glass jar, pour a little oil on top to cover it and seal tightly.
• 5 heat a wok or medium skillet over medium heat.
• 6 add the oil, and swirl to coat the surface of the pan.
• 7 when oil is hot, add the cilantro pesto.
• 8 stir-fry the pesto until quite fragrant, about 2 minutes.
• 9 increase heat to medium high and crumble in the ground lamb.
• 10 stir-fry the lamb until it breaks up into small lumps, renders some of its fat, and is no longer pink, approzimately 2 minutes.
• 11 add the fish sauce and sugar and continue cooking, stirring and scraping often to brown and coat the meat evenly.
• 12 after approximately 4 minutes, when the meat is nicely browned, remove the pan from the heat and taste the sauce for a pleasantly salty-sweet balance.
• 13 if needed add more fish sauce and/or sugar and return pan to heat in order to reduce the additions.
• 14 remove from the heat, transfer to a medium bowl and allow to cool to room temperature.
• 15 peel the pineapple and cut crosswise into 1/4 inch-thick slices.
• 16 remove the hard core from the center of each slice and cut into 1-inch squares.
• 17 you should have about 2 cups of squares.
• 18 to serve, mound a spoonful of savory lamb onto pineapple square.
• 19 garnish each mound with pepper strips and cilantro leaves.
• 20 transfer to a platter and serve at room temperature as a finger food.