This is a great summer curry …the addition of lime and coriander during the cooking process results in a spicy, zesty curry which is even better the next day.
It’s a classic and regular favourite in our home. With a busy weekend scheduled I have made extra for a few meals. Here’s the link to the original recipe below.
A shortcut recipe for a Southern Thai Pork ribs curry with a zesty, spicy, sweet, sour Thai curry sauce…yum.
I was looking for dinner ideas yesterday and stumbled upon a recipe for this traditional Southern Thai “dry curry”, called this because it doesn’t have coconut milk in it. Now this is a new delicious discovery!
Shortcut Recipe
The traditional Thai dry curry recipe involves making the hot spice paste from scratch, which looked quite involved ..probably worth it if a larger amount and all the fresh ingredients required are available.
To bypass making the paste from scratch, but try to achieve the flavours outlined in the original recipe, I decided to use a bought red curry paste as a base and add additional ingredients such as turmeric, lemongrass, lime zest, fresh chillies and garlic pounding these to a paste first and then adding the bought curry paste.
The resulting paste worked really well. This is the only hard work you will have to do as the rest is just simmering it all together for about an 1 hour and 20 minutes.
Using lean pork ribs with very little fat also meant that the end result wasn’t overly oily/fatty.
My additional ingredients
I also added small eschallots and chopped green beans which are optional but the sweetness of the onions and crunch of the green beans went well with the succulent, lip smacking ribs!
This will be going on a family favourites list!
Method:
1. Cut all the ribs into individual pieces slicing between them.
2. Slice 1/2 the stick of lemongrass, chop up 3 chillies, ginger, garlic and put into a mortar and pestle. Add the lime zest and pound all the ingredients until a paste forms.
3. Add the turmeric powder to the paste and mix through.
4. Add the bought curry paste and shrimp,paste and pound/mix together with your paste to amalgamate.
5. Heat oil in a heavy based pot (which has a lid), add curry paste and the 3 other chillies (left whole with stems removed). Stir fry paste until it is fragrant.
6. Add 1/2 cup or so of water to loosen up the paste, then add pork ribs and stir to coat ribs in sauce stirring continuously so ribs don’t stick and paste doesn’t burn. Add additional water if necessary. You just want the meat to “seal” rather than brown.
7. Add kaffir lime leaves, rest of water, fish sauce, black pepper, white pepper, sugar and bring to a boil, then reduce to simmer for 40 minutes.
8. Add eschallots, lime juice and stir.
9. After another 15-20 minutes, check curry is not sticking, see if your meat is tender. Add green beans, and a bit more water if necessary.
10. Cook for 5-8 minutes until green beans are just tender. Sauce should be well reduced and you will see the oil separating slightly on the sides. You want the sauce to be coating the ribs!
11. Garnish with finely sliced lime leaves, chopped coriander and serve with jasmine rice, and an empty bowl on the side for your rib bones!
The combination is inspired by Bengali curries that use of Panch Phoran Five spice mix, except I substituted some of the spices with fresh ingredients to add zing, and added a “Tadka” style garnish for an extra layer of flavour.
The Nigella seeds are key to adding their unique almost maple syrup tones complementing the sweetness of the prawns.
So, the key ingredients for this curry are fresh prawns, nigella seeds (kalonji in Hindi), fennel seeds, lemon, fresh coriander and lots of ginger. I add two whole red chillies to impart some heat but they can be removed or allocated to the spice lovers!
I finished the prawns by adding my version of a Tadka, by slow frying thinly sliced onions in butter and adding fresh ginger and coriander. This “garnish” added another layer of flavour to the dish, resulting in quite a scrumptious outcome.
Can be served in lettuce cups, naan and/or with rice.looks great on a bed of turmeric rice.
Prep time: 30 minutes. Cooking time: 30 minutes
Ingredients:
Method
1. Prepare all the fresh ingredients: a) shell and devein prawns, b) finely dice only 1.5 of the onions and finely slice the other half into thin half moons (keep seperate), c) finely dice the tomatoes, d) pound to make a paste the garlic, equivalent amount of fresh ginger and 1 red chilli together with 1/2 teaspoon salt, d) zest lemon and juice it.
2. Heat oil in shallow wide saucepan, add cumin seeds, add 2 red chillies left whole and curry leaves and cook on low heat until fragrant and leaves stop sputtering. Add diced onions only (not the sliced half moons), cook over low heat until just transparent.
3. Add ginger and garlic paste, nigella seeds and fennel seeds, mix through the onion mixture and cook until just fragrant, taking care so it doesn’t stick to the pot.
4. Add tomatoes and mix through, add the other 1/2 teaspoon salt, 1/2 teaspoon turmeric and 1/2 cup of water. Simmer with lid on until tomatoes break down, adding small amounts of water if necessary.
5. While tomatoes are cooking, make the onions for the “Tadka” garnish: in a seperate pan, melt butter add sliced onions and cook slowly until caramelised. Chop 2 handfuls of coriander, finely slice ginger into matchsticks together with coriander. Set aside
6.When the tomatoes have broken down into a saucy consistency, add 1/2 lemon juice, the prawns and cook for 6-10 minutes, simmering until as much excess water that might come from prawns has evaporated but ensuring prawns don’t over cook. Pour over rest of lemon juice.
7. Garnish prawns with the “Tadka” and serve with rice, naan and/lettuce cups.
Xmas is coming. We are preparing for small covid safe gatherings here in Sydney. Thought I’d organise myself by making extra of the filling for samosas tonight …and then make the actual samosas tomorrow night.
So i doubled the filling from Samosas and served with Red lentil dhal with rice and salad.
Now tomorrow I will use the rest of the filling to make the samosas, and freeze them so I have a supply to freeze up for drinks and gatherings over the weekend.
I haven’t made this curry for ages. Not sure why because it is very delicious, especially with the addition of the sweet, nutty flavour of fenugreek seeds which is strangely reminiscent of maple syrup.
The sweetness of the cauliflower is enhanced by the fenugreek and spiced up by the curry flavours of the sauce. A great alternative to using potato in Lamb and Potato Curry
Prep time: 15 minutes Cooking time: 1 hour
Ingredients:
Method:
1. Heat vegetable in a large casserole pot on medium heat, add cummin seeds, cinnamon bark and curry leaves if using. Cook for just a minute until fragrant.
2. Add onions and cook slowly until transparent.
3. Add ginger and garlic paste and mix through onions.
4. Add cummin powder, turmeric, salt, chilli and mix through until just heated through. Take care not to burn.
5. Add lamb and stir until it’s sealed. Add a bit of chicken stock to stop the lamb sticking if needed. After about 10 minutes, add the fenugreek seeds and enough stock to cover the lamb, reduce heat and allow to simmer for 35 minutes until the lamb is starting to get tender.
6. Add cauliflower and tomato and simmer for another 15 minutes until the cauliflower is cooked and the sauce is reduced.
7. Garnish with coriander and serve with basmati rice and or naan and salads.
We are trying to cut down on carbs again so trying to come up with ways to have curry flavours without eating rice or breads.
This recipe is inspired by Morrocan B’stilla, replacing the filling with Indian flavours and replacing the almond cinnamon icing sugar sprinkle traditionally used in the Morrocan version with Kersik, a Keralan coconut crumb mixed with cinnamon and cardamom powder.
Basically, you first make a dry curry with desiccated coconut and then bake it in a light filo pastry crust. The result was a delicious crispy package with spicy slow cooked lamb filling.
Defrost Pastry: 2 hours Prep time: 20 minutes cooking time: 2 hours
Ingredients:
Method:
1. Remove filo pastry from fridge to bring to room temperature allowing 2 hours.
2. Prepare onions, ginger garlic chilli paste and cut up lamb.
3. Heat oil in heavy based casserole dish, add cummin seeds, cinnamon stick, mustard seeds, cardamom pods and curry leaves and cook over medium heat until crackling stops. Take care not to burn spices.
4. Add onions and cook slowly until golden and just starting to caramelise.
5. Add ginger,garlic, chilli paste and mix through onions cooking until fragrant, about 1 minute.
6. Add turmeric, chilli and cummin powders and mix through to distribute evenly and just heat through.
7. Add lamb, 1/2 teaspoon salt, dried chillies and 2 tablespoons water to stop sticking and coat lamb in onion spice mixture. Slow lamb to seal, stirring from time to time for 2-3 minutes.
8. Add 1.5 cups of hot water or chicken stock to just cover lamb. Simmer with lid on over low heat for 30 minutes, checking regularly to ensure it isn’t sticking.
9. While lamb is simmering, toast the coconut until golden brown in a dry pan, taking great care as it will burn quickly if not constantly shifted and stirred. Allow coconut to cool slightly.
10. Add 1/2 the toasted coconut to the lamb and mix through, add more water or stock and cook for another 15-20 minutes until lamb is very tender and liquid is reduced.
11. Taste to see if additional salt required, this is unlikely especially if you are using chicken stock with salt in it.
12. Clean, chop coriander and mint. Melt butter and allow to cool slightly.
14. Remove lid and reduce mixture until liquid almost totally reduced, leaving only a moist coating on the lamb. Then mix through coriander and mint.
14. Transfer lamb to a plate to cool, remove dried chillies, cinnamon stick and cardamom pods(if you want and can find them). I just leave them in! PRE-HEAT oven to 180 degrees Celsius. Line a baking sheet with baking paper.
15. Whilst lamb is cooling, mix cinnamon powder and cardamom powder with remaining toasted coconut, pound together in a mortar and pestle, making a fragrant mixture to layer between the pastry sheets.
16. Take one sheet of filo pastry, lay horizontally, brush with butter and lay another sheet on top and repeat with another sheet. After 3 sheets, brush the next one with utter and add a sprinkling of the Kersik coconut mixture. (4 filo sheets in total horizontally)
17. Layer a sheet of filo vertically across the middle of the horizontal stack, brush with butter, sprinkle with coconut mixture and repeat with 2 more sheets. (3 filo sheets vertically in total)
18. Add the lamb mixture in a neat even pile in the middle section where the base is made up of 7 sheets of filo.
19. Fold the horizontal section over from right to left, taking some of the vertical section over to create a straight edge, brush with butter, sprinkle with more coconut if you have any left, fold the left side in and repeat with remaining sections of pastry to create a neat rectangular parcel.
10. Place the parcel face down on a baking sheet lined with baking paper. Brush with remaining melted butter.
11. Place in oven for 20-25 minutes until pastry is golden brown.
12. Remove, sprinkle with remaining Kersik, allow to cool for 5 minutes and cut into wedges to serve with salad, and raita.
