Thai Yellow Curry Paste (Prik Gaeng Kari)

The Thai curry that is openly, admittedly Indian — and the one that closes the loop on this whole subject.

Kaeng kari. And kari is the same word: Tamil kari, Portuguese caril, English curry. Thailand borrowed the FOREIGN word for the one curry that came from outside. Everything else in the family is a kaeng with a Thai descriptor; this one is named after the loanword, because Thai cooks were quite clear it was an import. It came up through the Muslim, trade-connected south of the peninsula, the same direction massaman came from.

Structurally it is red paste plus turmeric plus a dry-spice set straight out of an Indian masala — very often including curry powder itself, so it is a paste with a powder inside it. It is the mildest and roundest of the three colours, which makes it the sensible one to cook for people who find green curry punishing.

Ingredients

Dried chilies

• 6-8 large dried red chilies, stemmed and soaked (mild ones — yellow is not meant to be fierce)

The pounding set

• 1 Tbsp coarse salt
• 2 stalks lemongrass, pale lower third, sliced thin across the grain
• 2 in / 5 cm galangal, sliced thin
• 2 in / 5 cm FRESH turmeric, peeled and sliced (or 1 Tbsp ground — see Notes)
• 8 cloves garlic
• 6 Thai shallots (or 3 regular), sliced
• 1 Tbsp coriander root, chopped
• 1 tsp white peppercorns

The Indian half — toasted and ground

• 1 Tbsp coriander seed
• 2 tsp cumin seed
• 1 tsp curry powder (yes, genuinely — see Notes)
• 1 in piece cinnamon or cassia
• 3 green cardamom pods, seeds only
• 2 cloves
• 1 blade mace or a scrape of nutmeg

Last in

• 1 Tbsp shrimp paste (kapi), toasted

Directions

Key ingredients

Fish Sauce · Curry Powder, Madras · Cinnamon · Black Pepper · Salt · Shrimp Paste

1. Soak the dried chilies in warm water 20-30 minutes, then squeeze them properly dry.
2. Toast the whole dry spices together — coriander, cumin, cinnamon, cardamom seeds, cloves, mace — in a dry pan over medium heat until they smell, 1-3 minutes. Tip them out immediately, cool, and grind fine. Add the curry powder to the ground mix off the heat.
3. Wear gloves for the turmeric. Fresh turmeric stains hands, mortar, wooden spoons and worktop, and it does not come off in a hurry. I mean it.
4. Pound in order. Salt first. Ground dry spices next. Then the drained chilies. Then the fibrous group — lemongrass, galangal, turmeric, coriander root, peppercorn — and take your time here; turmeric is woody and fights back.
5. Then garlic and shallot, then shrimp paste last, worked in until the whole thing is one smooth mass with no identifiable pieces.
6. To cook it: crack the coconut cream (spoon the thick top off an unshaken can, bubble it alone until a clear oil separates), fry the paste in that fat 2 minutes, then let it down with the rest of the milk.
7. The classic build is chicken and potato — sometimes sweet potato — simmered until tender, finished with fish sauce and palm sugar, and a generous heap of crispy fried shallots over the top. Yellow is built sweeter and richer than the others, with more coconut and more onion.

Notes

Yes, curry powder really goes in it This surprises people, and it is not a shortcut or a Western corruption. Southern Thai yellow paste has carried Indian dry spice for a long time, and commercial Thai yellow pastes very often list curry powder on the ingredient panel. It is a paste with a powder inside it, and that is the honest structure of the thing.

Fresh vs ground turmeric Fresh is better and worth seeking out at an Asian grocer. Ground works and is what I would use on a weeknight; use about a tablespoon and add it with the other ground spices rather than trying to pound powder.

Where it sits against an Indian curry The dry spices overlap almost completely. Everything else differs: a pounded fresh paste of lemongrass, galangal and coriander root instead of an onion base cooked down with ginger and garlic; coconut fat instead of ghee; coconut milk instead of yoghurt, cream or tomato; fish sauce instead of salt; Thai basil and makrut leaf instead of coriander leaf and garam masala. That list is a decent one-line answer to what makes a Thai curry Thai.

Khao soi, while we are here Northern Thailand has its own curry-powder curry — khao soi, from Chiang Mai, a coconut curry noodle soup over soft egg noodles with a nest of crisp fried noodles on top. Its ancestry runs overland through Burmese and Yunnanese Muslim trade routes rather than by sea. Two curry-powder dishes arriving in the same country from opposite directions, three hundred miles apart.

Storing Fridge two weeks under oil; freezer six months in cubes.