Thai Sour Curry Base Kaeng Som แกงสม Recipes

THAI SOUR CURRY BASE (KAENG SOM - แกงส้ม)

Steps:

• In a granite mortar, pound the chilies and salt together until you have a smooth paste with no visible pepper seeds.
• Add the shrimp paste and continue to pound until smooth.
• Add the sliced shallots, a couple of tablespoons at a time, and pound until smooth.
• Add the fish meat and pound until you have a smooth paste.
• Put the fish stock in a pot and bring it to a gentle boil.
• Stir in the prepared paste, followed by tamarind pulp, fish sauce, and palm sugar.
• Once the palm sugar completely dissolves, taste and correct the seasoning as necessary. The flavor should be predominantly sour, then salty, and a little sweet.
• Your kaeng som curry base is now ready to be used right away or frozen.
• To assemble a 2-serving portion of kaeng som, bring 2 cups of the curry base to a boil in a medium pot, add desired vegetables. Once the vegetables are almost ready, add cubes of fish fillets or peeled and deveined shrimp and gently cook until the fish or shrimp is done.

SOUTHERN THAI SOUR CURRY RECIPE

Steps:

• Bring broth or water to a simmer and add 1 TBSP of paste at a time. Mix, stir and taste. Continue adding additional TBSPs to your preferred taste. 3 TBSPs is what I like but that's REALLY spicy! You could even add more.
• Add 2 TBSPs lime juice and then add more to desired taste. If you're cooking for more than yourself, you can leave out the lime juice and let each person add it to his/her individual bowl.
• Add veggies and simmer a few minutes.
• Add fish or shrimp and simmer a few minutes until cooked through.
• Adjust flavors to your taste with lime juice, fish sauce or salt or even sugar.
• Serve with a side of steamed jasmine rice.
• Enjoy!

KAENG SOM (THAI SOUTHERN STYLE SOUR CURRY)

Steps:

• Using a mortar and pestle (food processor), grind all of the curry paste ingredients together very, very finely (it is important to do this well so you won't happen upon any large bits of chili in your soup!).
• Put the curry paste aside and prepare the soup ingredients. Thinly slice sour, slightly unripe pineapple. Dice the sour papaya into 1 inch cubes. Clean and cut some fish into bite-size pieces until you have about 1-1 1/2 cups.Set all of these aside. For your mise en place, you'll need a bottle of fish sauce, 4 sliced limes ready for squeezing, and some sugar.
• Bring about 4 cups of water to the boil, add about half of the curry paste and stir and simmer until the broth is fragrant. Add more curry paste if necessary, but don't add it all at once as it may be too much! Add the pineapple and the sour papaya. Simmer until they begin to soften, 3-4 minutes, and taste the curry. The pineapple and papaya should add a slightly sweet and sour flavor to the broth.
• Squeeze a few limes' worth of lime juice into the broth until you reach a tolerable state of sourness. Remember, it is called "sour" curry, so there should be a definite sour taste, followed by spicy, salty and sweet. Add some fish sauce if it isn't salty enough.
• Add your fish. Simmer until the fish is just done, 2-3 minutes, remove from heat, and you're done! Serve with rice.