Red duck curry (kaeng ped pett yang)

Ingredients

• 400 ml coconut milk
• 300 g roasted duck meat, skin removed, broken into large bite-sized pieces
• 1 tbsp fish sauce
• 4 tinned lychees and 1 tbsp juice from the tin
• 4 bite-sized chunks of fresh pineapple
• 100 g apple eggplants, cut into wedges
• 100 g pea eggplants
• 1 long red chilli, diagonally sliced
• 6 makrut lime leaves, torn
• 50 g Thai basil leaves, torn

Red curry paste

• 10 dried long chillies, softened in warm water for 10 minutes, drained
• 2–3 fresh small red chillies
• 1 lemongrass stalk, white part only, sliced
• 2 cm piece galangal, sliced
• 1 cm piece fresh turmeric, sliced
• 7 garlic cloves 
• 1 shallot, sliced
• 1 makrut lime, rind removed
• 1 tbsp shrimp paste
• 125 ml water
• vegetable oil

Instructions

Put the curry paste ingredients other than the oil in a blender and process to a smooth paste.

Heat a little oil in a small frying pan and fry the paste for 10 minutes to remove the raw taste. Spoon into a jar.

Heat half of the coconut milk in a saucepan over medium heat. Add 3 tablespoons of curry paste (store the rest in the refrigerator) and stir well to combine. Cook for about 5 minutes, until the oil starts to come to the surface. Add the duck, fish sauce, lychees, lychee juice, pineapple and remaining coconut milk. Bring to the boil and add the eggplants and chilli. Cook for a few minutes, until the eggplants are just tender. Stir in the lime leaves, then remove from the heat and stir in the basil. Serve with steamed rice.