Lort Cha from the Tomb Raider Cookbook
The next Tomb Raider Cookbook recipe that I made was Lort Cha. A Cambodian stir fried noodle recipe, it is something Lara could very well have eaten during any of her travels there (as seen in the opening of Tomb Raider: The Last Revelation or the climax of Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, by which I mean the first Angelina Jolie movie).
Lort Cha is a popular and economical dish in Cambodia, served with rice pin noodles, vegetables, meat (this recipe uses chicken), a fried egg and chili sauce at the end. The one sticking point with this recipe was the noodles. Rice pin noodles, according to the Tomb Raider Cookbook, are sold in Asian specialty markets. I couldn't find them in any stores I went to. In that instance, the book recommends you make them with a recipe they provide, which requires rice flour, wheat starch and tapioca starch. Although one day I want to make Lort Cha with the authentic noodles, for the purposes of trying the recipe, I substituted Udon. My apologies to the people of Cambodia for the inauthenticity.
To semi-emulate the short length of the rice pin noodles, I chopped the Udon into cubes and then did my best to rather clumsily unfurl them from each other. For scale, I used 400g worth of Udon, or two of those vacuum-sealed packages. Whatever I couldn't loosen by hand without breaking, I let unravel with the heat.
As an aside, I hate cleaning up fried egg residue. Non-stick pan my ass, that stuff sticks and you really have to scrape it off. Which is probably why it gets less non-stick over time, but I digress.
This isn't much different from most stir fries in terms of prep. You cook everything in stages: the marinated chicken breast until it's seared and fully cooked, then take that out, add your vegetables in stages, then the noodles, chicken and sauce, and cook that until everything is heated through. The whole point of a stir fry is that nothing overcooks, and at the end, you finish with bean sprouts and scallion greens, plus a fried egg and chili sauce (I used sriracha) to your liking.
It was very good! I will for sure make it again using rice pin noodles, either store bought if I can ultimately find some, or I'll make them myself.
If you want to make this recipe for Lort Cha yourself, you can find it in Tomb Raider: The Official Cookbook and Travel Guide.
