Nahm Tok Mu (Waterfall Pork Salad)

Ingredients

• For the marinade
• 4 coriander roots, scraped clean, finely pounded
• 3 cloves garlic, finely pounded
• 2 tbsp fish sauce
• ½ tsp white pepper, freshly ground
• For the pork
• 600 g pork neck (kaw mu), whole piece, excess sinew trimmed
• For the dressing
• 3 tbsp fish sauce
• 3 tbsp lime juice, freshly squeezed
• 2 tbsp toasted rice powder, khao khua: raw glutinous rice dry-toasted and ground
• 1 tsp dried chilli flakes, toasted briefly in a dry pan
• 4 shallots, thinly sliced
• 1 small bunch mint, leaves picked
• 1 small bunch coriander, leaves and fine stems

Method

1. 1
   Combine the pounded coriander root and garlic with the fish sauce and white pepper, then rub the paste thoroughly into the pork neck so the aromatics penetrate the dense fat and muscle rather than sitting only on the surface. Leave the meat to marinate at room temperature for 30 minutes — the paste should adhere visibly to the surface of the meat, and bringing the pork up from a cold start means the centre will cook evenly on a fierce grill without the outside burning before the inside is done.
2. 2
   Prepare a charcoal grill to medium-high heat and grill the pork neck, turning as needed, until the exterior is deeply caramelised and carries char in places while the interior is just cooked through. The fat will begin to drip and flare — this is the 'waterfall' that defines the dish, and those flares of flame lick back smoke and rendered fat onto the meat, building the flavour that no pan can replicate. The surface should be taut and lacquered, darkened at the edges, fragrant with rendered fat and caramel.
3. 3
   Rest the pork for five minutes set over a board or tray that will collect the dripping fat and juices, because those pooled juices carry the char, the marinade, and the rendered fat that become the backbone of the dressing. Do not discard them. This is where the dish lives or dies: if the pork is sliced cold, or if the juices are lost, the character of nahm tok is gone. Slice the rested pork across the grain into pieces of approximately 5 mm while the meat is still warm, so the heat in the slices continues to open the dressing once it is added.
4. 4
   Transfer the warm sliced pork and all collected juices to a mixing bowl, then add the fish sauce, lime juice, toasted rice powder, and dried chilli flakes and toss immediately, so the dressing hits warm meat and the rice powder begins to swell and bind the liquid into a light coating rather than a thin puddle. The salad should smell of charred meat, lime, and fish sauce simultaneously — if any one of those three is absent from the nose, the balance is already off.
5. 5
   Add the sliced shallots, mint leaves, and coriander, then toss once more. Taste and adjust: the balance should be sharp and savoury in equal measure, with the chilli present but not dominant. The salad is ready when the shallots have softened slightly from the residual heat of the meat and the rice powder has thickened the dressing to a light coating consistency.