← Nouns Cooking · Thai

Ingredients

• 500 g Minced pork
• 3 tbsp southern Thai or red curry paste
• 2 cm piece fresh turmeric (or ½ tsp ground), finely grated
• 1 lemongrass stalk, white part, very finely chopped
• 4 tbsp Water
• 1 tbsp Fish sauce
• 2 tsp palm sugar or brown sugar
• 1 tsp Black pepper, freshly and coarsely ground
• 8 Makrut (kaffir) lime leaves, stems removed, very finely shredded
• 2 Bird's eye chilli, sliced (optional)
• ¼ white cabbage, cut into wedges
• 1 Cucumber, sliced
• 300 g jasmine rice

Method

1. Heat a dry wok or heavy frying pan over medium-high heat. Add the curry paste, turmeric, lemongrass and 2 tbsp water and stir for 1–2 minutes until it smells strong and toasty. No oil goes in: this is a dry-fried curry.
2. Add the pork and work it into the paste, breaking it into fine crumbs with your spatula.
3. Keep stir-frying for 8–10 min, scraping the bottom of the pan hard, until the meat is cooked through, the liquid has gone and each crumb is coated in paste. Add the rest of the water a splash at a time if it sticks and starts to burn.
4. Season with the fish sauce, sugar and pepper and toss for 1 minute more.
5. Toss in the lime leaves and chillies, cook for 30 seconds until fragrant, then serve with rice and plenty of cool raw cabbage and cucumber to tame the heat.

Tips

• This is properly hot. For less heat, use 2 tbsp curry paste and skip the fresh chillies.
• Most curry pastes contain shrimp paste; chicken or beef mince work just as well as pork.

Sources

Written in our own words after cross-checking these recipes:

Marion's Kitchen Hungry in Thailand