Nam phrik long ruea

A dip served as a composed plate, with the accompaniments part of the dish rather than beside it.

Pork, Duck, Fish, Egg. Not vegetarian — contains duck, fish, pork, shrimp paste.

Ingredients

the dip

• 3 tablespoons shrimp paste
• 2 tablespoons fermented fish, strained
• 8 garlic cloves
• 10 bird's eye chillies
• 4 tablespoons lime juice
• 3 tablespoons palm sugar
• 2 tablespoons tamarind paste

on the plate

• 200 g sweet pork, shredded
• 2 salted duck eggs, quartered
• 150 g crisp fried fish, flaked
• 1 green mango, in matchsticks
• assorted raw and blanched vegetables

Method

1. THE ACCOMPANIMENTS ARE THE DISH, not a side to it. The other three nam phrik on this site are a bowl of dip with vegetables beside them; this one is a composed plate where the sweet pork, the salted egg and the crisp fish are arranged around a small amount of dip and each mouthful combines several of them.
2. Make less dip than you expect. It is one element of five, not the centre.
3. STRAIN THE FERMENTED FISH and use the liquid only. The solids carry bone fragments, and in a dip eaten by the spoonful that is immediately obvious.
4. Toast the shrimp paste wrapped in foil in a dry pan, 3 minutes a side, until it darkens and stops smelling raw.
5. Pound the garlic and chillies to a rough paste, then work in the toasted shrimp paste.
6. Palm sugar worked in with the pestle until dissolved, then the lime juice, tamarind and strained fish liquid stirred rather than pounded.
7. TASTE IT AGAINST SOMETHING SWEET, not on its own. It is built to sit beside candied pork and will seem far too salty and sour tasted alone.
8. Sweet pork: simmer shredded pork with palm sugar and fish sauce until dark and sticky, as for the khao khluk kapi on this site.
9. Arrange on a wide plate: dip in a small bowl in the centre, everything else in separate heaps around it.
10. Eat by taking a little dip with a piece of two or three other things at once.

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