Prik Gaeng Phak Dai Curry Paste
Homemade paste for curries from southern Thailand
The Prik Gaeng Phak Dai (
This is a spicier variant of
Ingredients
- 10-20 dried red chilies
- one teaspoon coarse sea salt
- one tablespoon black peppercorns
- 3-4 fresh red Thai chilies
- 2cm fresh galangal
- one small turmeric root
- 2 stalks lemongrass
- one knob Chinese garlic
- 2 shallots
- 2 tsp zest of a kaffir lime
- one teaspoon shrimp paste
Preparation
First, soak the dried chilies in lukewarm water for about a quarter of an hour. In the meantime, we can prepare the other ingredients.
To do this, free the fresh chilies from their stems and cut them into pieces. Then cut the galangal and turmeric root into slices. Then remove the woody parts and outer shell of the lemongrass stalks and cut the remaining part into rings. Finally, peel the garlic and shallots and cut them into rough pieces.
Now take the soaked chilies out of their water bath and pound them together with the coarse salt in the mortar. This is followed by the black peppercorns, which are also pounded. Then add all the solid ingredients one by one in the order of the ingredients list to the mortar, pound them and mix them with the other ingredients until a paste is formed.
If not already done, now use a julienne cutter to cut some zest from the kaffir lime and mix it into the paste. Finally, add some shrimp paste to the curry paste and mix everything well. If you want to prepare the paste vegetarian, simply leave out the shrimp paste and use a little more vegan fish sauce later for the curry.
The finished curry paste is enough for one to two curries and keeps for two to three days in the refrigerator. You can achieve longer shelf life by freezing the paste. Some people use ice cube trays for this to make the paste easier to portion later.
Usage
