Southern Thai ‘Khua Kling’ Pork

To make the curry paste, soak the dried chillies in hot water for 10 minutes. Then squeeze and reserve the soaking liquid.

Place the softened dried chillies in the bowl of a food processor along with the remaining curry paste ingredients. Blend until smooth (add some chilli soaking liquid if the mix won’t blend smoothly).

Heat a wok or frying pan over medium heat. Add about 2 tablespoons of pork mince and cook to render some of the fat. Then add half the curry paste (store the other half in the freezer for up to 2 months) and stir-fry with the pork for 2-3 minutes. Then add the remainder of the pork and stir-fry gently until the pork is cooked. This should take about 10 minutes because you want the pork to ‘poach’ in the cooking liquids rather than searing and browning.

When the pork is cooked, add the fish sauce, palm sugar, pepper, makrut lime leaves and green peppercorns. Taste and add more fish sauce or sugar to taste if necessary.  Serve with cabbage, snake beans or cucumber and rice.