Sawaddee ka welcome to hot Thai kitchen today I've got the easiest curry ever to share with
you it's so easy in fact that it is the one that we make the most often at home in Thailand it's
something called gaeng som so gaeng is curry and som means sour so yes it is a sour curry that's
more like a soup if you were to look at it sort of from a Western standpoint it's very light very
thin super delicious the version that I'm making today is skank so Malacca and Malacca is papaya
so it's a dish that contains green papaya which a lot of people look at green papaya and they're
only thinking salad but it's actually a really really versatile vegetable so let's get started
so as always I'm gonna make the curry paste first and this is the symbol is curry raised
ever I'm starting with some dried chilies I don't like my gang some to be very spicy so I'm using
today the bigger ones this is ygo peppers and I'm adding just a few our bold chilies for that extra
spiciness you can make it as spicy or as mild as you wish okay just gonna take the seats out
by cutting these into chunks who to the chilies I'm gonna add some shallots and garlic that I've
chopped and a little salt and of course some shrimp paste if you are vegetarian you do not
have to add the shrimp paste you can have some miso paste instead this curry paste does not have
a lot of ingredients so the shrimp place flavor will actually come out quite a bit so if you're
sort of new to it don't add too much otherwise it might be a little too shrimp pasty and now this is
hard to find but it's really important in gang so this is called crotch high or in English is
called finger root now I know this label says rhizome and brine which is as descriptive as
calling an apple fruit I can't get this fresh so the fresh ones look like in the label here but the
stuff in brine is actually really really good the smell is still strong and really true to what the
fresh fruits smell like if you can't find it oh I'm gonna say well you know what what can you do
right so you gotta skip it there's nothing you can substitute with it really smells similar you could
try galangal but it's really quite different look in your Asian grocery stores Vietnamese
stores will often have it as well sometimes it's shredded like mine is here sometimes it's whole so
take a look ask around so since this curry paste will not be sauteed I can actually add some water
and blend it makes my life easy I don't need to you know fight with it you can of course do
this in a mortar and pestle but this is one of the rare occasions where you can just add water
and blend all right yes there are still little flakes of chillies don't worry about it that's
okay it'll add a little character to the curry so first of all check out my beautiful new pot
it was on a crazy sale so I couldn't stop myself but any case in this beautiful pot I've got some
unsalted pork stock you can do chicken stock you can do fish stock now gang sum is unique in that
it's brothy but the way you thicken the curry is with fish so I've got here some Cod but for
this you can use any mild flavored fish that you have even leftovers would be fine make sure it's
inexpensive I mean don't do this with $20 a pound halibut because we're gonna like smush it up to
nothing so I'm gonna just cook this fish really quick in this pot here in this broth here so the
fish is fully cooked now I'm gonna take this out transfer it in my mortar and pestle here just so
I can mooch it up and by the way you can put as much fish or as little fish as you like depending
on how thick you want it some people don't put the fish at all back to the curry pot I'm gonna
turn the heat back on so now my curry paste is just gonna go straight in I mean this is one of
those a water-based curry if you read my book you know all about water-based curry but water
based curries generally doesn't involve sauteing the paste in advance you just dissolve it right
in so this is why I said it's more like a soup so it's light brothy and delicious and let that come
to a simmer I'm going to add my fish also and by the way don't use canned tuna I've done that
before it does not taste good that you want mild flavor before I add my vegetables I'm going to add
my seasoning so when I put my vegetables in it has some seasoning to absorb right so of course fish
sauce as per usual some palm sugar to balance the salt and also the acid which will add in a
second this is key ingredient right here tamarind I'm using tamarind concentrate or what I refer to
as tamarind juice this is the main sour flavor and you cannot have gangs home without Terran tamarin
sourness varies from brand to brand so I always just start with three tablespoons than I taste
and adjust from there so while that's coming to a simmer I want to talk to you about vegetables
so I mentioned this is gangsta melaka which is papaya so that's my green papaya right there
that I cut up in today's wedges now if you're wondering what green papaya looks like thank
you very much tada this is a green papaya it's not a different variety of a paya it's just an
under ripe papaya but I like to go with the bigger ones it's more substantial if you get like one of
those little Hawaiian papayas there the meat is so thin so I like to stick with the bigger one so
it's the same one you use for green papaya salad right when it comes to gang so my like a lot of
different types of vegetables so there's lots of things to choose from so some classic choices are
napa cabbage which I've chopped up some carrots which I made into beautiful little stars here and
what I did was that I use a julienne peeler and peeled the carrot and then just slice them and
the julienne peeler will create this beautiful edge that makes a carrot so much more festive
and super easy to do and if you're interested in buying the julienne peeler it is listed in my kit
of with that link in the description below and some dark green color and crunchiness I've got
some long beans here that I just cut up okay so it's coming to a boil now I'm going in with papaya
and carrots which will take longer to cook and the papaya in my experience takes about 10 minutes so
eight minutes in I'm gonna add the rest of the vegetables which will only take two ooh look at
these so now I just gotta go and just fork these papaya okay it's cooked it's still a little firm
that's okay because it still got a couple more minutes the napa cabbage and the long beans and
by the way if you're in southern Thailand you notice that they're gangshim's is more yellow
and in fact they call it gang Luang which is the yellow curry and all they do is they add turmeric
in it does that look pretty ooh beautiful so now protein why so gangsol typically typically uses
shrimp so I've got here some shrimp that's been peeled and deveined you can do fish you can do
other protein as well it's not wrong I'm just showing what's classically done and these are
gonna just take 30 seconds at the most and that is it how easy was that that is a legit hiker it
would by the way if you have my book check out the gang some version in my book it has pieces
of omelet floating in the soup which goes super well so check that out now I'm gonna do a final
tasting to adjust acidity most importantly mmm oh that's good but it does need some acidity I
find that the tamron that they have here it's not that sour so I always want to finish it with some
lime brightens everything up now you may not need the lime okay this depends on your Tamron and I'm
also gonna add just a touch of fish sauce and this is something you have to adjust because depending
on how much vegetables you put in what kind of vegetables you put in they release different
amounts of water right so always always taste now mmm I'm like salivating I mean this reminds
me so much of my mom it's one of our favorite curries and it's actually really healthy too
right it's just full of vegetables and herbs and and this is of course normally eaten with
rice like all curries but I was not organized enough to get the rice cooked in time so I'm
just gonna taste it for you straight up which is also delicious so I'm gonna try the papaya
instantly takes me home I mean there's there are very few flavors that really communicate
the rustic simple home cooking of Thai cuisine better than this one tart with a little sweet and
that aroma of the broth I really comes through its it's flavorful yet simple and clean at the
same time and it's really a nice break if you know you always stick with the rich coconut
curry this is light and brothy put some rice into here and eat it like a rice soup and so
I hope you give this a try the recipe as always will be on kaptai kitchen comm when you make it
send me a photo on Facebook Twitter or Instagram and if you haven't subscribed to the show make
sure that you do so you don't miss a recipe and also click the little bell icon to make sure you
get a notification when I post a new video if you love the show you want to support us check out our
patreon link in the description below and I will see you next time for your next delicious tiny