Laotian-Style Chicken and Rice Salad

Crunchy, spicy, sour, and bright, the Naem Khao at Thip Khao in Washington, DC, is everything I want to eat forever and ever. The Laotian salad is traditionally made by forming rice seasoned with red curry paste into pucks that are deep-fried until golden brown. The fried pucks are then broken apart and mixed with sour pork sausage, shredded pork skin, lots of herbs, shallots, and a fish sauce dressing.

This weeknight version skips the deep-frying but keeps a similar balance of flavors and textures. In this approach, cooked rice gets crisped in a skillet until golden brown and crunchy and then broken apart and used as the base for the salad. Ground chicken cooked with store-bought curry paste adds depth, while thinly sliced onion, herbs, and a sweet-sour-salty dressing keep things bright. The thin shreds of ginger are a revelation: When soaked in ice water, they become mellow and extra crunchy, less of an accent and more a vegetable in their own right. I highly recommend using cocktail peanuts, which have the utmost roasty flavor with oily, salty skins. —Shilpa Uskokovic