Alex and I love a good Thai curry, so over the past year we’ve been working our way through Nok Suntaranon’s curry chapter in Kalaya’s Southern Thai Kitchen – and every. single. one. has been phenomenal.
The book includes five different curry paste recipes, each making enough to stash some in the freezer for a future, super satisfying meal. For her Gaeng Pu (Southern-style crab curry), the base is Kalaya House Curry Paste (Nok’s mom’s yellow curry paste) fragrant, savory, and complex.
The paste is puréed with coconut milk, shrimp paste, and crabmeat, then gently simmered with brown sugar and fish sauce. More crab goes in at the end, along with red hot chilies, torn lime leaves, and basil, just until everything is warmed through and glossy. Rich, aromatic, and comforting.
We served it with somen noodles and crisp raw cucumber. If the curry paste is already made, this comes together in about 15 minutes – a weeknight meal that tastes like it took days.
Book: Kalaya’s Southern Thai Kitchen, page 117
Rating: 5/5
How Easy Is That – Skill Level: Easy
Store-Bought Is Fine: Shrimp paste
Recipe not online.
