Panang Thai Curry- a delightful morph

If you were to research the origins of Panang (sometimes spelled Phanang) you may find a controversy and a full out battle on Wikipedia - seriously, there are those that believe that the origins are from the Malaysian island of Penang (looks the same, not pronounced the same as Panang), and others that are determined it is Thai. Regardless of where it originated, it is delicious and different enough from the normal soup-like curries in Thailand, Malaysia, and Indonesia that there must be another influence that crosses all of these borders.

This curry paste recipe begins as your basic Thai red curry - rehydrated red spur, and hot Thai chilies, galangal, lemongrass, shallots, garlic, shrimp paste, and cilantro root (or several large bunches of stems). It is then morphed into something that has close ties with some northern Indian dishes by way of using peanuts as a thickener (cashews appear to be used more in the Indian curries) and the addition of toasted then ground cumin seeds. The other ingredient that makes this different is the addition of kaffir lime leaves - the zest is also used but much harder to find. Cumin is the morph here for me - besides the base ingredients, if I didn’t know any better I would be almost certain this originated in India. The protein used quite often is is beef (neua or neux) or pork (moo - yes moo! Wrong animal right?). Shrimp (kung) and chicken (gai) used as well but doesn’t appear as popular. This is also a coconut based curry which adds to its richness and gravy-like consistency - with the addition of the crushed peanuts it becomes even more thick thank your normal Thai curry. There is not often vegetables added to the dish, typically the meat in the curry served with jasmine rice.

In our version we will be offering pork, shrimp, or vegetarian. To add some color we will put a few bell peppers in right before serving.

Kin di!