Nam phrik num

Green chillies grilled whole and skinned before they are pounded, so the dip tastes of smoke.

Not vegetarian — contains fish sauce. Everything else in it is vegetarian, so it becomes a vegetarian dish if you use vegetarian fish sauce — which is sold, including by Thai brands.

Ingredients

• 300 g long green chillies
• 1 head garlic, unpeeled
• 4 shallots, unpeeled
• 3 tablespoons fish sauce
• 2 tablespoons lime juice
• 1 bunch coriander, chopped
• 0.5 teaspoon salt

Method

1. GRILLED WHOLE AND SKINNED BEFORE POUNDING. Everything goes onto a dry pan or into the coals in its skin, chillies, garlic and shallots alike, and is turned until blackened in patches and soft inside. The smoke is the flavour of the dip; raw-pounded, the same ingredients make something sharp and thin that tastes of nothing but chilli.
2. Dry pan over a high heat, or under a very hot grill. Chillies 8 to 10 minutes, turning; garlic and shallots 15 to 20, until they give completely when squeezed.
3. Put the chillies in a covered bowl for 10 minutes. The steam loosens the skins.
4. Peel the chillies, and pull the stems and most of the seeds out. Squeeze the garlic and shallots out of their skins.
5. Do not rinse anything. Water takes the char straight off, which is the one thing you spent twenty minutes making.
6. Pound the garlic and shallots first with the salt to a rough paste, then add the chillies a few at a time.
7. POUND, DO NOT BLEND. It should stay shaggy and loose, with pieces you can see. A blender gives a smooth green purée with a completely different texture in the mouth.
8. Fish sauce and lime stirred in with the pestle. Taste: salty, smoky, sour, hot in that order.
9. Coriander folded through at the end. Serve with sticky rice, raw vegetables and crisp pork rind.

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