Passport & Plate - Namprik Oong ( Tomato Chili Dipping)
Thailand | Thursday, March 5, 2015 | 5 photos
Ingredients
Ingredients (for 2-3 serving potions, degree of spicy – low)
• 6 dry chilies
• 2 medium size garlics
• 3 medium size red onions
• 6 cherry tomatoes
• 300gr minced pork
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 1 tablespoon of coconut palm sugar
• 1 tablespoon fish sauce
How to prepare this recipe1. Start preparing the chili paste by grilling the chilies, red onions and garlic. Grilling them before cooking will help to bring out the scent of the ingredients.
2. Pounding the ingredients from number one into a mortar and pestle them altogether until they mix well as a smooth and homogeneous paste.
3. Put the oil on a medium heat into wide frying pan until it warms up and then gradually pour the minced pork to the pan, then lightly fry until the pork is done.
4. Put the chili paste to the pan. Mix it with the minced pork and fry until the chili paste releases some juice.
5. Season flavors with the coconut palm sugar and fish sauce.
6. Chop the tomatoes and add them to the frying pan and keep frying on a medium low heat until the tomatoes soften and releases most of their juices
7. Add a bit water if too dry
8. Dress the dipping with cilantro on the top
9. Serve with boiled egg and an assortment of fresh or parboiled seasonal vegetables.
The story behind this recipeMoving from the countryside to capital city of Bangkok for over ten years, simple daily life moment like cooking always connect me back to home. For me, home is not only related to physical setting of concrete construction, but also an emotional connection to where I belong.
Grown up in the Thai-Chinese family, cooking is a tradition for family gathering and time for domestic wisdom to pass from one generation to another. Since I remembered, my mother has always been a dedicated housewife, whose one third of her time spending on cooking for nine family members.Our kitchen has never been quiet.
One of the most popular dish of our house is “Namprik or Chili Dipping”. This recipe adheres to one Chinese culinary main concept – to treat food as a medicine.We believe in the yin and the yang and use food to aid in promoting and retaining health.While the chili dipping is more on the yin origin, the vegetables we eat with are on the yang side.Having balance yin and yang will help us to reconnect with ourselves by maintaining a normal state of body and mind.
Namprik has many variations, but Namprik Oong (tomato chili dipping) is our most favorite one with its less spicy taste. Although only a few main ingredients are required, yet this does not mean it is easy.Because our recipe does not have the exact proportion of what to put in, we have to estimate the amount of the ingredients by ourselves. What I find charming of cooking this way is it implies that we need to adjust the flavors of the dishes to please diners' palates. So for me, it is the recipe that combines both the hands-on skill and the heart to understand the favorite taste of others.
When I look at this homemade plate, I realize it is my mother’s legacy that fondly inherited to me as a daughter.Every time I cook, it recollects of what she demonstrated every day in the kitchen that – it is not just only the food cooking that matters, but the soul and feeling we have put in to that will last longer as a memory.
