Red Curry Paste Isaan Style (recipe)

During many of my travels I found that red curry pastes differed in their ingredients, some have star anise in them, others have fennel seeds and some have palm sugar.

To be perfectly honest, I think the best tasting paste to me is the Isan variant of Khaeng Phed (hot curry or red curry) which is quite strong (and not for the faint hearted) and can be added or subtracted to in order to make a variety of other dishes. I learned this recipe from my neighbours in Nong Khai.


For this paste you will need -

2 shallots
2 cloves of garlic
1 tablespoon of powdered cumin
1 tablespoon of coriander seeds
1 handful of coriander leaves
3 - 4 stalks of lemongrass
1 thumb-sized piece of galanghal (can be substituted with ginger)
1 lime
1 handful of dried chillies - preferably bird's eye variety
1 tablespoon of shrimp paste
1 tablespoon of fish sauce or soy sauce

Notes - my pestle and mortar is quite small, so I do my paste in steps and then mix and pound finally. Don't use a blender for this. Your paste will come out watery and colourless and you will lose a lot of flavour.
I also sometimes add large fleshy chillies such as the mexican variety because I get more red pigment out of them. If you can't get hold of chillies, sri-racha sauce can be used instead of chillies and garlic.

Further notes - star anise, fennel and palm sugar can be added to give a more malay variant to this curry paste.


Step 1 -

Toast the cumin powder and seeds for about 30 seconds or until fragrant by swirling them around in a pan or wok. Take care not to burn it too much, a little is OK though. Pour the contents into a pestle and mortar and pound until fine. Then toast the shrimp paste in the pan or wok on high heat. I tend to use an electric hob, so my trick is to heat the wok on high, then turn off the power and stir the paste around, flipping it from one side to the other.

Note - shrimp paste comes in a variety of consistencies and sometimes with a fat scum on the top, the idea of toasting it brings out the flavours but also helps to dry the paste out a little. Also note, shrimp paste carries a VERY strong odour - you probably want to open a window!

Step 2 -

Mix the powdered cumin and coriander thoroughly with the paste and set aside. In the meantime, pound the dried chillies as finely as you can. In Isan they tend to soak the chillies and then pound them - I believe that this helps to get the red pigment out of the flesh and makes it easier to de-seed the chillies.
Mix the dried chilli powder into your shrimp/cumin/coriander paste.

Step 3 - Squeeze the juice of the lime and remove the rind - cut this into small pieces and pound together. Add the lemongrass stalks (cut into pieces) and the coriander leaves and pound into small fibres. If the fibres seem big to you, just go in manually with scissors and cut across the paste a few times. Add in the galanghal and work it in with the pestle.

Step 4 - Set the pounded ingredients together in a bowl and mix well, add some fish sauce if the taste is not salty enough. Pound some garlic and the shallots into a paste and add to the bowl.

Step 5 - Put all the ingredients back into the pestle and mortar and pound for about  5 minutes.

Voila - you have your paste.