Red Thai Curry with Pork

I’ve cooked many Thai curries with red curry paste. Today I want to introduce you to Red Thai Curry with Pork or “Gaeng Phed Moo” ( แกงเผ็ดหมู ). I used Yak Thai curry paste for this recipe, which is very flavorful and quite spicy, which is why I always use a smaller amount than with pastes from other manufacturers. If you’re using a different curry paste, you can use one to two tablespoons more.

Last but not least, a quick word about the color of the curry. The red may be less intense than with other pastes because many other manufacturers add food coloring. Of course, you can do that too if you like bright red. Or you can crush some mild chilies in the mortar and add them as a natural coloring to the paste.

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Preparation

First, let’s prepare all the ingredients so that cooking can be a relaxed process. If you’re not using snake beans and prefer to use green beans, you should blanch them beforehand or use pre-cooked frozen beans. In any case, I assume the beans won’t need much cooking time.

We should also wash the meat briefly, pat it dry, and then cut it into bite-sized pieces. Then the baby corn should be cut into diagonal pieces. Of course, you’re free to use additional vegetables, but overloaded vegetable curries, as often found in local Thai restaurants, are rather unusual in Thailand.

Now we can heat the oil in a wok, a high-sided pan, or a pot and stir-fry the meat until it starts to change color. Then we add the red curry paste and stir-fry it until it’s fragrant.

To both, we then add the solid part of the coconut milk, which usually collects at the top of the Tetra Pak or can, mix it with the meat and paste, and continue stir-frying briefly together.

Then we add the remaining coconut milk to deglaze. Then we tear the kaffir lime leaves into pieces and add them with the fish sauce to the sauce. Finally, we dissolve the palm sugar by stirring in the curry sauce.

We let the curry simmer gently for five to ten minutes before adding the baby corn and beans and letting it simmer again for five minutes. In the meantime, we can pluck the Thai basil leaves from their stems.

Finally, we turn off the heat, add most of the leaves to the curry, and let them steep briefly. Then we serve the finished Gaeng Phed Mhu in bowls, garnish them with the remaining basil, and serve it steaming hot with jasmine rice.