Gaeng Hunglae (Northern Thai Pork Curry)

The formula

Every ingredient resolved to grams, expressed against the recipe's own base — next to the median of all 136.

	this recipe	typical

Adapts cleanly: dairy-free, egg-free, nut-free (documented swaps, applied on the dish page)

Ingredients

Weights computed by us.

	10 dried Thai red chiles, stemmed and seeded see notes)
3 g	1 teaspoon Diamond Crystal kosher salt; for table salt, use half as much by volume
10 g	1 tablespoon (10g) fresh galangal, finely chopped, see notes
25 g	2 lemongrass stalks (about 1 ounce; 25g), thinly sliced cross-wise
65 g	13 medium cloves garlic (2 1/4 ounces; 65g)
60 g	1 large shallot (about 2 ounces; 60g), thinly sliced cross-wise (1/2 cup)
14 g	1 tablespoon kapi shrimp paste (see notes)
14 g	1 tablespoon (15ml) neutral oil, such as vegetable or canola
454 g	1 pound (454g) skin-on pork belly, cut into 1-inch cubes
454 g	1 pound (454g) pork shoulder, cut into 1-inch cubes
12 g	2 tablespoons hunglae powder or garam masala
16 g	1 tablespoon sweet soy sauce, such as kecap manis
38 g	3 tablespoons palm sugar
70 g	1/4 cup Thai tamarind paste (2 1/2 ounces; 70g)
946 g	4 cups water (946ml), plus more as needed
70 g	1/2 cup pickled garlic cloves (2 1/2 ounces; 70g), lightly smashed, see notes
30 g	10 medium cloves garlic, peeled and lightly smashed (about 1/4 cup)
85 g	1 5-inch piece ginger (about 3 ounce; 85g), peeled and julienned, divided, plus more for garnish
35 g	1/4 cup peanuts (1 1/4 ounces; 35g), roasted and unsalted, and roughly chopped (optional)
	Steamed white rice, for serving

Method: 5 steps, published by www.seriouseats.com — open the original ↗ or use bake mode for a follow-along with a screen that stays on.

“This was excellent, but the prep time is hilariously underestimated. It took me a good 1.5-2 hrs to pull everything together, cut up the various ingredients and make the curry paste until I actually started cooking the paste and pork. So 15 min prep is more th” — a cook