Thai Red Curry (พริกแกงเผ็ด)

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 paste

The first things to grind are the dry stuff

Ingredients