A popular northern Thai Curry, with bold aromatic spices.
Inspired by my trip to South East Asia where I tried Hung Lay curry for the first time. My first thought was how tasty it was and second was how good I thought it would be to try and make in my slow cooker! A more complex and longer recipe as it is difficult to get the spice mixes in the UK, so involves making a spice mix and curry powder from scratch. But absolutely worth it for the flavours and if you are looking to cook something different.
This recipe can be frozen for leftovers or you could make extra spice mix and/or curry paste to use again.
Ingredients
Serves 4
Hung Lay Spice Mix:
1 tbsp ground cinnamon
2 tsp black peppercorns
2 tsp grounder turmeric
2 tsp ground cardamom or 8 cardamom pods
2 tbsp ground cumin
1/2 tsp nutmeg ground/grated
1 tsp ground clove or about 3 clove pieces
1 star anise
Curry paste:
6-10 chillies, diced (depending on spice levels and chilli type - but it is meant to be spicy!)
6 garlic cloves, crushed
1 stalk lemon grass, bottom 2 thirds, chopped
2 tsp ground turmeric
Curry:
800g - 1kg pork belly, cut into chunks
2 tbsp soy sauce
6 tbsp tamarind paste
1 white onion diced
2 tbsp ginger paste
50ml water
optional - 2 green peppers (not traditional but we wanted an extra veggie and worked really well)
Directions
To make the spice mix, it is best to toast any whole spices such as the star anise, cloves, cardamom pods (deshelled) if using. Add these to a pestle and mortar along with the other ground spices and ground all together.
To make the curry paste use an immersion blender to turn the ingredients into a paste.
Heat a little oil in a pan, fry off the pork belly in stages until browned.
Add the pork to the slow cooker along with the curry paste, spice mix and other ingredients (if you want the peppers to maintain a bit of crunch, hold off putting them in until an 1 hour before it is done). Mix well ensuring pork is fully coated
Cook on low for 8 hours or 4 hours on high
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