Northern Thai style pork rib curry

Here's a recipe for a Northern Thai style pork curry.  It's something I've eaten in and around Chiang Mai, and, on my latest trip, had an especially good version at great restaurant a bit out of the city (where I was taken by Robyn and Dave, the v.knowledgeable and lovely people behind EatingAsia).

The version we had contained young jackfruit, which, when cooked until tender, is an absolutely delicious artichoke-like vegetable addition and works really well with the pork in this dish.

It's a red curry in that the paste is deep red due to the dried long red chillies pounded into it, but it's not like the red curry most people will be familiar with.  Why? Well mainly because a) there's no coconut cream used, and b) the paste has much fewer ingredients in and is boiled, not fried.

So if you're craving that classic ubiquitous style of Thai red curry then this isn't it. 

But if you want to try something different i.e a slightly spicy, pork and vegetable curry with clean flavours and a richness of good dried chilli, then give this one a go.  To me it's a great introduction to the style of some Northern Thai dishes.

The day I made this wasn't a great shopping day for SEAsian ingredients in London; no young jackfruit nor cha-om (a slightly stinky herb that works really well in this dish).  The veggies I used instead where: red shallots, bamboo, apple aubergine and cherry tomatoes, it still worked out pretty tasty and satisfying.



Ingredients (makes enough curry for 4):
 

• 400g of good quality pork ribs, cut through the bone into chunks
• 3-4 apple aubergines, cut into bite sized chunks
• 5 or 6 small Asian shallots, peeled
• 100g of bamboo shoots or boiled heart of bamboo, cut into bite sized chunks
• 10 - 12 cherry tomatoes
• Seasoning: sea salt and perhaps a splash of fish sauce, plus possibly a pinch of white sugar

Paste:

• 5-6 long dried red chillies, de-seeded & soaked in water for 20mins
• 2 sticks of lemon grass, sliced (save the trims)
• 2 tablespoons of chopped galangal
• 3 small Asian shallots, chopped
• 3 garlic cloves, chopped
• 1 good teaspoon of gapi (shrimp paste)

Method:

1. Make the paste by pounding the ingredients one by one in a pestle and mortar until fairly smooth (tips here are: start with a pinch of sea salt and the hardest ingredients - like galangal & lemongrass - first, and before pounding the dried chillies be sure to squeeze them dry and chop them up a bit).
2. Give your pork ribs a rinse and then put them in a pot with enough water or chicken stock to cover plus an inch or so.  Add the shallots, plus a piece or two of lemongrass or galangal trimm and a good pinch of salt.  Bring this to a gentle simmer and cook until the pork is tender (30 - 40 mins), skimming any scum so you have a nice clear broth.
3. Now fish out any trims of what not you've put in, turn up the heat to a boil and dissolve two generous tablespoons of the paste in boiling stock. Boil for a minute or so then turn back down to a simmer and add your apple aubergine, bamboo and cherry tomatoes.  Season with sea salt and optionally a splash of fish sauce too, plus a pinch of white sugar if it needs it. 
4. You're ready to serve once your tomatoes and aubergine are tender.

Eat with rice, and ideally as part of a Thai meal.

p.s if you dont like the idea of pork ribs then use chicken thighs or something (though on the bone is definitely better for the taste of the broth), other veg such as pumpkin or banana blossoms or green beans could also be used.  Herbs you could use: cha-om, coriander, betel leaves or long leaf coriander (pak chii farang).

Quick pork penang

Here's a quick way of making a drier almost 'stir fried' type of curry. It works with various pastes & protein combos, here I made 'penang' curry with pork, peanuts, plus lots of long fresh chillies and Thai basil.

Penang is a variety of Thai curry paste, to be simplistic it's a form of red curry which generally includes peanuts. It tends to go work best with beef or even game (we have a venison penang on the menu at Nahm at the mo), but pork is nice here too.

I'm not going to give a long recipe here, instead below is a rough idea of how I cooked it.

Note: I used a bought curry paste here as was in a hurry. Home-made is obviously best (the nice Thai lady who writes 'Chez Pim' has a good paste recipe here), but if buying try and get a decent one from an Asian store e.g the Mae Ploy brand is common and not too shabby*.

This was for 4 people, with some other dishes alongside...

I started by taking about a cup of thick coconut cream and heating it in a wok until it 'cracks' (starts to split and go oily), then with the wok fairly hot I fried three generous tablespoons of my paste in this for at least 4-5 mins, stirring the whole time, and added some torn frozen lime leaves I had handy.

Next I seasoned this with palm sugar and fish sauce to taste (rich, salty and slightly sweet) then added 300g or so of sliced pork loin, and cooked for a minute of two more before pouring in a small cup of chicken stock (or use thin coconut milk) plus 4-5 diagonally sliced long red and /or green chillies and some roughly crushed roasted peanuts.

Finally I just checked the seasoning again, turned off the heat and stirred through a big handful of thai basil leaves.

Start to finish it takes only about ten mins. Pretty quick and not too taxing.

*note on bought curry pastes - I'd say go for red over green (a green curry paste relies more on fresh ingredients, hence the ones from a tub/jar/bag/tube are always so disappointing).

A.

p.s cheers to Ben for the pic

Thai feed: southern style curry, grilled pork & chilli jam relish

On a recent day off i made the effort to go to Chinatown and pick up fresh Thai ingredients for a bit of a cook up. I went to Loon Moon - far as i know it's by far the best shop in Chinatown / central London for Thai ingredients, that is apart from when giant Icelandic ash clouds are stopping flights of Thai goodies coming over.

A couple of friends were coming over, one of which was Ben who kindly took some pics of the food.

I didn't have an exact plan of what to cook before i went out shopping but ended up deciding to make fresh coconut milk and using that to do a yellow curry with prawns, then some Northern Thai style grilled pork and an easy relish using bought Nam Prik Pao (a smoky Thai chilli jam) along with a few herbs, a grilled banana blossom and a various bits and bobs of garnish.

Here's some snaps and rough recipes:

First the curry...

I made my own coconut milk for this, which is not something I've done much before at home. But it's not as hard as it sounds, and, while more hassle, does produce much tastier result than opening a can. I'll take a load of pics next time i do it and do a whole post on it.
The curry itself was based on a quite a simple yellow* curry paste, which works well with lots of different types of seafood. I was going to put some torn up betel leaves in there at the end, but forgot!  No matter, but for the record they go well in this kind of curry.



*n.b I say 'yellow' here because the paste contains a good dose of fresh turmeric which makes the final curry.... you guessed it, yellow.  But!  That's slightly confusing because, in Thailand, if you ask for yellow curry (gaeng leung) you'll get a quite different spicy boiled curry with no coconut milk.  Hmmm...perhaps I should call this a 'turmeric curry'.  Any ways, i digress, back to the recipe!   


Here's the recipe for the paste:

- 6 long dried red chillies, soaked and de-seeded
- about 5 cleaned coriander roots
- 4 sticks of lemongrass, tough outside peeled off
- 5 Thai red shallots, peeled
- 3 cloves of garlic, peeled
- a small piece of fresh tumeric, peeled
- a square inch of peeled galangal
- a tablespoon of shrimp paste (gapi)

Chop all the above nice and small and then ideally use a pestle and mortar to pound the ingredients one by one (hardest first) into a paste. If you're not feeling motivated enough to go the authentic route then a small hand blender thing will whizz it all up in half the time with the addition of a splash of water to help it bind.













So to make the curry I heated most of the coconut cream until it cracked (split and became oily), then fried the paste in resulting 'crack' until fragrant (about 5 mins). I then seasoned this with a pinch of palm sugar and a few tablespoons of fish sauce, added a little more cream and some plain chicken stock to let it out.

Next went in the prawns (tail and heads still on but I'd taken the vein and middle section of armour off) and a couple of torn lime leaves, which i let cook for 4 or 5 more mins. Finally I added some sliced long red chillies (the forgotten torn betel leaves would have gone in now too), double checked the seasoning and dished in to bowls, finishing with shredded lime leaves:























At the same time I also cooked some slow grilled pork - using pork neck, but any not-too-lean cut would work, and marinated it in a paste of coriander roots, garlic and white peppercorns along with some sweet soy sauce. I cut it pretty thick and grilled it on my cast iron griddle thing long and slow, turning regularly.

Next time i think I'd cut it bit thinner (maybe 15 cm), just so it cooks bit quicker and gets a more caramelised crust, which is obviously the best part.

With the sliced grilled pork I served a sauce which Dtew (a Thai chef from Chiang Mai showed me recently) made from lime juice, tamarind water, roasted chilli powder, fish sauce and a v.small pinch of white sugar (i topped it with ground roasted rice for a bit of extra texture & nuttiness). Plus some fresh mint and coriander sprigs, lime & cucumber slices.
























Finally I did a relish based on nam prik pao, which is a chilli jam made from fried garlic, shallots, chillies, dried shrimp etc. You can buy quite good stuff in Thai shops. Which is what i did here - just warming a few tablespoons of it up in a pan and seasoned it with fresh tamarind water, palm sugar, roasted chilli powder and fish sauce. We do similar at Nahm, and then use it as a dressing for a salad.



Alongside the relish: some grilled banana blossom, blanched green beans and betel leaves:
























Thanks to Ben for the great snaps.