Thai food has become very fashionable of late.  It's kind of become, for me, like 'chinese' food was in the 70's and 80's.  You know the stuff I'm talking about, I know you do.  I grew up in a small town in Ontario.  We had all the stereotypes to go with it.  That  included the one 'chinese' family in town owning and running our only chinese restaurant - The Coronation Restaurant!  Yup... I ate there.  Chinese fried rice, sweet and sour chicken balls (ok that makes me want to gag just a little bit right now),  chinese bean sprouts (I don't know exactly what they were called but that's what we called them!).  Imagine my shock when I went to my first dim sum in Montreal's Chinatown and discovered that chicken balls were not on the menu.  I discovered that in reality most actual chinese food was nowhere near that stuff from The Coronation Restaurant.  Shattered!!!  (The dimsum was dope though, I won't lie)
I have a suspicion that if I went to Thailand that the food we are eating here and calling Thai curry and such would be nothing like the red/green curry, phad thai noodles and crap that we're eating ourselves silly with.  What the hell though, it tastes great.  I'm not complaining.


Here's what I've discovered with Thai stuff though.  If you want it to taste like it does when you go out for it (well almost the same) then you have to use fish sauce.  I'd heard that this stuff smelled gross so I was expecting something to knock me over when I opened the bottle.  However, nothing of the sort happened.  In fact, I didn't smell anything at all.  It was pretty innocuous.  It made a huge difference in the taste of the red curry sauce though.  All in all, this came together quite quickly with the right ingredients.  I got this ready in about a half hour from start to simmer.  The taste is really good, it's satisfying and it would be nice enough to serve to guests - especially since it makes you look all 'au currant' and all that ;-)


Red Curry Pork
serves 4 - 6

oil for frying
1 1/2 lb pork (I used chops, tenderloin would do too) cut into strips
1 small onion sliced thin
1 or 2 red/yellow/orange peppers, sliced thin
3 cups green beans, ends cut and beans halved
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 can of coconut milk
2 - 3 tbsp soy sauce
2 - 3 tbsp fish sauce
3 tbsp red curry paste
2 lemon grass sticks (optional)
salt to taste


Heat a large wok and add enough oil to fry veggies.  I used sesame oil which has a beautiful aroma.  Add in the onion, pepper and beans.  Fry at medium heat for a few minutes.  Add in the garlic and fry that for about 3 - 4 minutes.  Add in the pork.  Cook with the veggies until the pork begins to turn colour.  Add in the soy sauce and fish sauce.  Swish around for a couple of minutes.  Add in the coconut milk and curry paste.  Swish around some more until the curry paste is well incorporated.  Add in the lemon grass and salt just to taste.
Serve with rice or noodles.
Easy... Yum!