I looked into the fridge and there was a duck breast, with its skin dried up and ready for a good roast. There’s some pineapples and tomatoes. Looks like a good time to do a roasted duck red curry, a famous dish in Thailand.

There are six kinds of curries in Thailand that are really common (at least to my knowledge): red, green, yellow, massaman, Panang and pong karie. Of these, the red and green are the spiciest.

The red curry gets its colour from the dried red chili peppers that is used to be pounded into a paste with other ingredients. In the red, green and yellow curry pastes, the main ingredients are the same, being white pepper, coriander seeds, cumin seeds, garlic, onions, coriander roots, shrimp paste, galangal, lemon grass, tumeric, kaffir lime skin, small red chili peppers and kaffir lime leaves.

For yellow curry, increase the tumeric. For red curry, add lots of red chili peppers. For the green curry, add green chili peppers, and use the leaves and stem of the coriander.

As in all Thai cooking, sweeten using palm sugar, sour comes from the kaffir lime juice and saltiness the fish sauce.

You can add fish, egg plants, bamboo shoots, tomatoes, potatoes, chicken meat, roasted duck, pork, beef, peas and mint to the curry and they will still taste good. However, there are certain favourites, like the red curry, where roasted duck is always accompanied by pineapple pieces and cherry tomatoes.

Thai Red Curry

Print Recipe

Ingredients

1 Roasted Duck breast
1/2 cup canned pineapple pieces
1/2 cup cherry tomatoes
1/2 cup coconut milk

Red Curry Paste

1 tsp white pepper seeds
1/2 tsp cumin seeds
1/2 tsp coriander seeds
1 tsp tumeric
1/2 cup dried red chili pepper soaked for 15 minutes
5-10 dried small red chilies soaked
5 clove garlic
2 shallots
8 coriander roots sliced to 1cm thick
1 inch galangal or ginger
10 g Thai shrimp paste or belachan
2 lemon grass cut to 5mm thick

Instructions

Curry paste

Grind the dry seeds first: coriander seeds, white pepper, cumin and tumeric powder.
Add lemon grass, coriander roots, and then the rest of the ingredients for sauce.
Once it turns into a rough paste, remove and set aside.

Duck

If roasting the duck yourself, just rub in salt and pepper and roast the duck breast for 30 minutes.
Rest fo 10 minutes and slice the duck breast into small pieces and place onto a serving dish.

Cook curry

Add 2 tablespoonful of oil into a heated up pan.
Add the curry paste and stir on low heat until the oil separates from the paste.
Add the tomatoes and pineapple, add the drippings from the roasted duck.
Cook until thicken, then add the coconut milk.
Bring to a quick boil and pour over duck.
Serve immediately with steamed white rice.