Thai-Inspired Ginger Curry

For the spice heads

Welcome to The Sauce, deep travels through food and drink culture written by me, Charlie Brown, founder and former owner of what was once named Britain’s best independent wine store.

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This is the sort of recipe where, if you know anything about Thai cuisine, I ask you to bear with me.

It breaks a lot of Thai curry rules. So much so, when I discovered it many years ago, I sniffed at it. I’d just returned from Thailand and was deep into my if it’s not authentic, I’m not interested phase.

It was my mother-in-law who changed my mind. She found this recipe, knocked it up one night and it was one of those holy smokes moments.

How can something so simple, made in a completely inauthentic way, taste so complex and deep?

And is there such a thing as too much ginger? I vote no…

Since my mother-in-law’s triumph, the curry went straight into my recipe rotation and hasn’t left the top 10 since.

The curry is based on Chiang Mai’s Hung Lay pork curry. Hung Lay’s origins lie in Myanmar whose cuisine is influenced by India which makes it very different in style from the creamy coconut-based curries of central Thailand.

Think deep, spiced and aromatic rather than bright and coconutty.

The OG recipe includes pork, as is traditional in Northern Thai dishes. If you don’t eat pork, check the variations section for alternatives.

The aromatic flavours come from five-spice powder which - alas - is not available everywhere, including where I live. Again, the variations section includes alternatives.

Authentic Hung Lay curries are made with pork belly but because my recipe includes no frying (like I said, bear with me), pork belly is a bit fatty for the dish. Instead, I use pork loin, butt or leg.

Onto that no-fry business. This is completely out of character for Thai curries. Normally you’d fry off the meat and vegetables. You’d fry the curry sauce. With this dish, you do neither. Instead, you marinate the raw pork in the paste, add stock and simmer.

Trust me, it works.

Seeing as one of the bylaws of my recipes is that they are flexible and incur little waste, I’ve gone deep into variations underneath the recipe. There are however some non-negotiables, namely chillies, ginger, onion, garlic, and lemongrass. If these are not ingredients you often use, I’ve included some ideas on using and preserving them under the No Waste section.

Serves 4

The paste