I found a recipe for Jeow Bong (hot sauce) at seasite.niu.edu, I hope to be able to prepare this in the next day or so, and finally my version of Lao Jeow Bong.

Ingredients:

10 dried red chili peppers, to be grilled slowly until brittle (but do not let them burn and turn black) and then pounded finely

5 (small) shallots

5 (small) heads of garlic fire, then washed and pounded finely
These above two ingredients are to be seared in a charcoal

2 slices of galingale, finely pounded

salt and fish sauce

chopped coriander leaves

1/2 a strip of dried water-buffalo skin, grilled until done, then scraped smooth, cut into thin small slices and soaked in salt water

Method:
Pound together, until they are thoroughly mixed, all the previously pounded ingredients. Sprinkle salt on them and add a little water. Mix, and add the pieces of water-buffalo skin. Taste and check the saltiness. If the mixture is too thick, add some boiled water, still warm.

Put the mixture on a platter and garnish it with chopped coriander leaves. Serve it with Jee Sin Lod (grilled dried beef-take a long, thin piece of dried beef, say, a foot long and as thick as a finger; cook it by putting it directly into a charcoal fire; then remove it, rub off the blackened parts, beat it to make it tender and cut it up as you wish).

Back in Laos, the Sin Lod (beef jerky) are hung to dry in the sun, but in the US we’ve the drying oven that will cook and dry at the same time.  Some Laotians still dry their Sin Lod in the sun, my dad does his on a sunny summer day.

Dried Buffalo skin is another story.

The problem that I’m facing is not being able to find a strip of dried water-buffalo skin, if all else fails, I might have to substitute this with something else. I found some galingale at the Asian Market, but it’s not as fresh as the one from Laos, photo below.