Ground meat dishes, primarily Asian?

I was looking through a friends cookbook (the adventures of fat rice) and the recipe for minchi caught my eye. I really love the texture of ground or minced meat dishes over rice, whether saucy or no, or served with noodles. These often keep really well for leftovers.

My favorites to cook are probably the Thai mince stir fry with basil, pad krapow, and mapo tofu. I never really see the proper holy basil the Thai dish calls for and use regular Thai basil instead, and I know that mapo tofu is really about the tofu but I always add more meat. I’ve tried Taiwanese lu rou fan once at home, and loved it and wish there was more Taiwanese food in SF, and now I’m curious about Macanese minchi, which I’m sure I love, without actually having, uh, tried it! Again, any Macanese food in SFBA?

Also the first time I ever had Japanese nikujaga, it was made with minced rather than thinly sliced meat, and probably had more meat to potato than usually served in Japan.

What are some other fabulous ways minced or ground meat is served up? I’m mostly interested in east Asian dishes but by no means exclusively. Or or any of you feel like sharing your tips for the dishes I’ve already mentioned or preferences (beef vs pork, for example) that wold be great, too. What do you do with ground meat?

We do version of caramelized ground pork. Typically rib meat hand ground with tiny bits of soft cartilage but you can just use coarse ground pork. Season it simply with fish sauce and sugar equal portion. Then we fry little aromatic and then add the meat—we slowly render out the fat under low heat, stirring occasionally, when pan is dry, deglaze with it bit of water, repeating as many times as necessary, until what you essentially have are browned caramelized bacon-y bits. Finally adjust your seasoning, add fresh cracked pepper and serve with rice and some pickled mustard greens. It’s a classic viet dish.

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This is perfect, thank you! I’m trying that minchi recipe this weekend, looking forward to trying this, too.

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Have you had Steamed Pork Patty? If you are in SF plenty of Canto places around town serve this humble dish.

I haven’t yet, no, though I’ve long been curious. I’ll do a search for local SF sources. I love patties and meatballs, too. Lions head, hambagu steak, loco moco, what else?

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My first minchi, based on the fat rice recipe. I added wood ear mushrooms, subbed some molasses with light and dark soy because I don’t have any kecap manis or sweet thick soy sauce, and added Thai basil because why not. Leftovers with a fried egg will be breakfast tomorrow. I guess my potatoes ended up more of a…garnish! A delicious garnish…

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Have you tried larb? Laotian dish served in Thai restaurants.