I hope I’m not betraying my own culture when I say that the number of Thai desserts which I don’t care for far exceeds the number of those I like. For one thing, as much as I like coconut, I can only take so much of the let’s-float-some-fruits-or-tubers-in-coconut-milk-sweetened-with-palm-sugar-and-call-it-dessert stuff. Though I do not by any means hate candied taro roots, bananas in coconut cream, or sweet black bean “soup” or others that fall into the aforementioned category of dessert, there are other Thai sweets on which I’d rather spend my daily caloric allowance.
One of them is Kleeb Lamduan shortbread cookies. I love them so.
In the old days, these melt-in-your-mouth sablé-esque cookies were made with lard. Yep. Lard. (Before butter became widely available and before plant-based lipids became the standard cooking fats, Thai cooks had in the pantry a vat of rendered pork fat with bits and pieces of crunchy lardon.) The result was mildly-sweet cookies with a hint of a, not necessarily porky, but savory element. And if you’re one of those who appreciate the delicious combination of salty and sweet in desserts, you know what I’m talking about.