Phat phrik khing

A stir fry with curry paste and no liquid, where the long beans are half the dish.

Pork. Not vegetarian — contains curry paste, which usually contains shrimp paste, fish sauce, pork.

Ingredients

400 g pork belly, in thin slices
400 g long beans, in 4 cm lengths
4 tablespoons red curry paste
6 kaffir lime leaves, finely shredded
2 tablespoons fish sauce
1 tablespoon palm sugar
3 tablespoons oil
3 tablespoons water
2 long red chillies, sliced

Method

THE BEANS ARE HALF THE DISH, not a vegetable in it. Equal weight to the pork, and they should still snap. The khua kling on this site is minced meat cooked dry and fiercely hot; this is sliced pork and beans, milder, and the texture of the beans is most of the reason to eat it.
NO LIQUID AT THE END. Three tablespoons of water go in only to stop the paste catching, and they must be gone before it leaves the pan. A sauce means it is a curry, and this is not.
RENDER THE PORK BELLY FIRST in a dry pan, 6 to 8 minutes over a medium heat, until the fat has run and the slices have browned. That rendered fat is what the paste is fried in -- added oil alone gives a flatter dish.
Lift the pork out, leaving the fat. Add the oil only if there is not enough.
Paste in, fried 3 minutes over a medium heat until it darkens and the oil separates.
Beans in, tossed through the paste, with the water. 4 to 5 minutes over a high heat.
They should be blistered in places and still crunch. Covered or left longer they go army green and limp.
Pork back in, fish sauce and palm sugar, tossed 1 minute until the pan is dry again.
Lime leaves and chilli off the heat, shredded as finely as you can manage.
It should look oily and dry at once, with the paste clinging to everything and nothing in the bottom of the pan.

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