Roasted Duck Red Thai Curry (Gaeng Phed Ped Yang)

In the summer of 2006 during the first of several periods of extended vagrancy, I found myself (as most of us travlaars do), sitting on a beach in the Gulf of Thailand staring out at a ludicrously beautiful seascape, which wasn’t at all tainted by the hoards of bucket wielding, same same but different sporting, “oh my god! It’s such a small world”ing gappers, intent on getting utterly mind-fucked.

You may detect an air of sarcasm, but you’d be wrong, I was one of them.

It didn’t matter whether the moon was full, as long as my bucket was, and if it wasn’t you can bet it was affixed to my belt as a triumphant accessory, next to the glow stick/s, by my man-bag.

(Incidentally it’s not a small world you morons! If we bumped into each other in Magadan maybe that turn of phrase would apply, or Reykjavik perhaps, but not Thailand. It’s like Uni, but with Magic Mushrooms and Ladyboys).

Me and my partner in crime and best friend Ed, who still retains the mantle to this day in fact, needed to line our stomachs with food before drinking Thailand’s taurine filled answer to Red Bull (which actually has bits of bovine bollock floating in it), and although Ed romanticised about experimenting with the weird and wonderful flavours of South East Asia, the furthest he ever got was a chicken schnitzel. I on the other hand dived straight in and tried all I could get my hands on, the real favourite for me were the curries, and in particular the Thai Red Curry.

It came to pass that a year later I found myself back in Thailand, a little bit older and just as stupid, still armed with my glow sticks and man-bag, but with a newly developed affinity for cooking.

I arrived in Chiang Mai in the North West of the country and set about searching for a cooking school that would teach me how to create my beloved curry – ‘The Chiang Mai Thai Cookery School’ came highly recommended so I signed up for 5 days of lessons in all things Thai. On the final day we were bussed out to the house of the school’s owner, TV celebrity chef Sompon Nabnian, where he showed us his step by step recipe for the best Roasted Duck Red Curry in the world.

I have added and subtracted a few things here and there, some I couldn’t get like the fresh kaffir lime, and others I don’t like such as the green peppercorns. The taste however is sweet, rich, spicy and divine.

Ingredients: (Serves 4)

If you want to make the paste from scratch then do so, you can store the surplus for a good few weeks in the fridge.

Paste:

10 Large red chillies, deseeded, finely chopped

10 Red bird eye chillies

1 tspn coriander seeds, dry roasted for a few minutes

2 cardamom pods, dry roasted for a few minutes

½ tspn salt

½ tspb black peppercorns

2cm fresh root ginger, peeled and chopped

1 tspn fresh coriander root, chopped

3 cm of lemongrass, the lower end of the root

3 cloves of garlic, crushed

3 shallots, finely chopped

1 tspn shrimp paste

Curry:

3 duck breasts

100g red curry paste

350ml coconut milk

200ml coconut cream

4 kaffir lime leaves

1 small dark aubergine, cut into thin wedges

8 cherry tomatoes

8 white grapes
2 sticks of lemon grass, topped and tailed and cut into 3cm lengths

Small handful of sweet basil leaves

1 wheel of fresh pineapple, cut into small segments

2 large red chillies, thinly sliced into wheels

1 tablespoon fish sauce (Nam Pla)

1 tablespoon dark soy sauce

1 tspn palm sugar

1 tspn white sugar

Rice for serving, this is necessary as the curry is extremely rich and really needs the cool blandness of the grain to soak up the flavours of the sauce.

Method:

Paste:

1. You can make the mix by pounding everything in a pestle and mortar - start with the coriander seeds, cardamom pods and black peppercorns, then add the rest of the ingredients and grind into a smooth paste. Alternatively you can put everything in a blender and whizz it that way, you may have to add a little water to the mix.

There are plenty of great curry pastes in the supermarket if you don’t have the time to make your own, Waitrose has a particularly good ‘Foods of the World’ section where you can find almost all of the ingredients you’ll need.

Curry:

1. Slice a few slits across the skin of the duck breasts and season them, fry them skin side down in a pan with a little oil for a few minutes so they get a little crispy, put them on a baking tray in the oven at 200°C for 15 minutes. When the time is up take the duck out and cut it into thin slices, it may be pink in the middle but this is alright as it can be eaten rare and will continue to cook in the curry later on. Set aside.

2. In a measuring jug pour 100ml of coconut milk and 150ml of coconut cream, mix together thoroughly. Pour it into a wok and simmer for 5 minutes whilst constantly stirring, the coconut oil will begin to separate out on top, this isn’t massively noticeable but it does enhance the flavour a lot. I can’t explain why, it just does.

3. Add the curry paste and stir it through, simmer for a further 2 minutes and add the remaining 250ml of coconut milk and mix it in. When it bubbles roughly tear up the kaffir lime leaves and chuck them in along with the aubergine, pineapple and cherry tomatoes, cook for 3 minutes. Now add the grapes, half of the sweet basil leaves, half of the chopped chilli wheels, the chopper lemon grass, the palm sugar, white sugar, fish sauce, soy sauce and the sliced duck. Mix it up and cook for another 4 minutes.

4. Plate up with some rice, garnish with the remaining basil leaves, chilli wheels and a drizzle of the leftover coconut cream. There are so many flavours in this curry but they all love each other, it’s a very happy dish.