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1
Place the raw sticky rice in a dry pan over medium heat and stir constantly for 15–20 minutes until every grain has turned deep gold — not medium gold, which still carries a raw starch note, and not brown, which is the beginning of bitterness — but deep gold, smelling of popcorn, toasted grain, and a faint nutty caramel. Remove from the heat, and while the grains are still warm grind them in a spice grinder or mortar to a fine-sandy powder, stopping short of flour so the texture retains a slight coarseness, because that coarseness is what gives larb its characteristic mid-palate grip. The powder keeps in an airtight container at room temperature for two weeks.
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2
Place the finely minced chicken thigh and breast in a pan with the water or light stock and set over medium heat, working the mince apart with a spoon so it separates into fine, loose pieces rather than clumping, since any cluster that browns will harden and resist the dressing. The chicken should cook in its own moisture and fat without taking colour. Cook only until the pink is just gone, then remove from the heat immediately, as the residual heat will continue the cooking.
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3
This is where the dish lives or dies: the chicken must be warm — not piping hot, not cooled — and it is at that precise temperature that you add the toasted rice powder, dried chilli flakes, fish sauce, lime juice, sliced shallots, spring onions, and fresh chilli, because the warmth opens the surface of each grain just enough for the powder and dressing to cling rather than sit apart. Toss everything together to combine. If the chicken has cooled, the rice powder will remain separate and grainy; if it is still too hot, the lime juice continues to cook and the aromatics are driven off.
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4
Taste and adjust across all four registers — fish sauce for salt, lime juice for sour, chilli flakes for heat, and toasted rice powder for nutty depth — bearing in mind that the mint you will add at service will introduce a cooling brightness that lifts all of these and can make a correctly seasoned bowl taste briefly milder, so do not oversalt or oversour now to compensate. The first taste should register fish sauce and lime as the primary sour-salty pairing, the toasted rice powder arriving as a mid-palate texture-and-flavour event, and the dried chilli heat building behind it.
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5
At the moment of service — not before — add the mint leaves and coriander and toss once, so the herbs stay bright and unbruised rather than wilting against the warm, dressed chicken. The chicken should be separated into fine pieces with the rice powder coating the surface of each grain, the herbs scattered throughout in fresh colour, and the raw shallot providing its white-purple note. Serve immediately with sticky rice.