Khao khluk kapi

Shrimp paste rice served with its garnishes separate, mixed by whoever is eating it.

Pork, Shellfish, Egg. Not vegetarian — contains fish sauce, pork, shellfish, shrimp paste.

Ingredients

the rice

700 g cooked jasmine rice, cold
3 tablespoons shrimp paste
4 garlic cloves, chopped
4 tablespoons oil

the sweet pork

300 g pork belly, in thin strips
4 tablespoons palm sugar
2 tablespoons fish sauce
2 tablespoons water

on the side

3 eggs, made into a thin omelette and shredded
2 green mangoes, in fine matchsticks
6 shallots, thinly sliced
8 bird's eye chillies, sliced
4 tablespoons dried shrimp
2 limes, in wedges

Method

EVERYTHING ARRIVES SEPARATE AND IS MIXED AT THE TABLE. The rice in the middle, each garnish in its own heap around it, and whoever is eating it combines them. Tossed together in the kitchen the mango goes limp, the omelette goes soft and every mouthful tastes the same -- which is the opposite of the point.
Dissolve the shrimp paste in a little warm water first, 2 tablespoons, so it can coat the rice evenly. Added as a lump it stays in lumps and burns against the pan.
Fry the garlic in the oil until pale gold, then the dissolved paste for 2 minutes until it stops smelling raw.
Cold day-old rice in, broken up and tossed until every grain is evenly grey-pink. 4 minutes. Warm rice clumps and steams.
Sweet pork: melt the palm sugar with the water in a small pan until it bubbles, then the pork in, then the fish sauce.
Cook it down 12 to 15 minutes, stirring, until the pork is dark, sticky and candied and the liquid has gone.
IT IS MEANT TO BE PROPERLY SWEET, almost like a confection. That sweetness against the salt of the rice and the sourness of the mango is the structure of the whole plate.
Make the omelette thin, roll it and shred it finely.
Arrange: rice mounded in the middle, pork, omelette, mango, shallot, chilli and dried shrimp in separate heaps around it.
Lime squeezed over by whoever is eating, then everything turned together with a spoon.

Our own recipe. This one was written for this site rather than taken from anywhere, so there is no source to point you at. The quantities and the order of the steps are choices, not the only way to do it.

Filed under Thailand · All recipes