Nam Prik Kapi (Thai Shrimp Paste Chile Sauce)

Ingredients

2 tablespoons shrimp paste
4 cloves garlic
5-6 dried shrimp
5-7 fresh Thai chile peppers
3 tablespoons lime juice
3 tablespoons fish sauce
2-3 tablespoons palm sugar
1 tablespoon tiny Thai eggplant

Method

In a mortar and pestle, pound dried shrimp into a coarse powder, remove from mortar and set aside. Place shrimp paste and garlic in mortar, mash and grind together then add the dried shrimp back into the mortar. Add Thai chile peppers and eggplant (leaving a few eggplant aside for later). Pound the mixture together, adding palm sugar, lime juice and fish sauce to suit your taste. Spoon it into a dish and add a few eggplants for visual appeal, it should look like this.

This can be served in a wide variety of ways. Spoon over fresh steamed jasmine rice, or use as a dipping sauce for fresh or boiled vegetables such as cucumber, string bean, cabbage or bamboo shoot. It's also a wonderful accompaniment to Lao style vegetable curry. In Thailand this is very popular to eat with fried mackerel fish (pla tu).

Nam Prik Ong (Thai Spicy Pork and Tomato Dip with Veggies)

Ingredients

-  450    g ground pork
-  490    g plum tomatoes
-  18    g minced garlic
-  55    g onion
-  1    tbls grapeseed oil
-  3    tbls fish sauce
-  1    tbls of sugar
-  4    tbsp lime juice (1 lime)
-  20    chili peppers (10g, or less if you don't care for mouth fire)
-  118    ml water


Directions

1. Heat a heavy skillet over medium heat. When pre heated, toss in your whole tomatoes to dry roast them (No oil is needed) Let cook turning occasionally until cooked through and browned/blackened all over  5 - 10 minutes. Remove and set aside

2.  Repeat the same dry roasting procedure with the shallots, chilis and onions. Again, remove and set aside.

3.  Add the pork to your skillet (if it is too blackened, get a new skillet fired up) and cook through.

4.  In a mortar and pestle, squish squash the chili, shallots and garlic very well (you may use a blender if you don?t have a mortar and pestle here). When well smashed up, add in the tomatoes and squish them up too.

5.  Throw another heavy skillet on the stove top, and heat it up to medium high. When hot, add in the Tbls of oil and the pork, the chili-tomato-garlic-shallot paste, and the remaining ingredients, the water, fish sauce, sugar and lime juice.

6.  Heat it all up to a vigorous boil, and then reduce the heat and simmer until it is well combined and uniform, and has the consistency of a thick Bolognese pasta sauce.

7. Taste for seasoning and serve with fresh cut slices of cucumber and wedges of crisp cabbage , pork rinds are also a traditional accompaniment.