Shrimp Paste Rice - Kow Klook Gapi ข้าวคลุกกะปิ

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Shrimp Paste Rice tastes like home to me. It combines all the core ingredients, shrimp paste, dried shrimp, green mango, chili peppers, lime and shallots, into one dish. The rice is mixed with shrimp paste and dressed with fried beaten egg, shredded green mango, fried dried shrimp, sliced shallots and hot chili peppers. Additional lime juice enhances the sourness. Contrasting the flavor of shrimp paste, the rice is eaten with sweetened pork.

On my plate, I mix the rice with sliced shallots, fried dried shrimp, shredded green mango, hot chili and fried scrambled egg. The delightful aroma of different strong ingredients hit my nose. I tame the shrimp paste scent with lime juice. Each bite, I taste the shrimp paste and the crunchy fried dried shrimp. In between, I cut the shrimp paste flavor with sweetened pork. It's more than just a good dish, it's a complete visit to Thailand.

Shrimp Paste Rice seems like a lot of ingredients and sounds daunting, but it actually has many simple steps. To the Thais, this dish is cobbling up ingredients at hand and making a new dish. Shrimp paste, shallots, hot chilies, dried shrimp are common, comparable to the mayonnaise, mustard and ketchup in most western homes. Many Thai families grow green mangoes in their yards or gardens.

I love the simplicity of Shrimp Paste Rice, so, occasionally, when I see restaurants unnecessarily complicating it, I'm always surprised. Many restaurants in Thailand prepare this dish by turning it into a fried rice, which totally misses the beauty and is a distortion from its name 'klook'. Klook means to mix together. A newer version of the rice also includes fresh green beans. For me, feeling at home is to have the version that I grew up with, pure and simple.

2 Servings, Prep Time: 25 Minutes, Total Time: 25 Minutes

2-5 chili peppers
3 cups cooked rice
2 tablespoons dried shrimp
1 egg
1 tablespoon fish sauce
1/2 cup shredded green mango
1 lime
2 tablespoons Palm Sugar
1 cup sliced pork
1/4 cup thinly sliced shallots
1/2 tablespoon shrimp paste
cooking oil

Tips and Techniques

Use one medium shallot or 2 small ones.
Select small dried shrimp (1 cm) for best result. Smaller shrimp is easier to fry until crispy. It's also perfect size for each bite.
I use lean pork for sweetened pork. Traditionally, pork belly is used. If you love pork belly, this is a great opportunity to eat it.
Choose high quality shrimp paste because the whole dish rests on the shrimp paste.
Natural ingredients like palm sugar and green mango may vary depending on the trees. Use this recipe as a guide.
I find that a great ratio between palm sugar to fish sauce is 2 to 1. Start with this ratio and adjust as you see fit.
Freshly cooked rice is best. Cook rice with less water so that when you mix the shrimp paste in, the rice doesn't get gummy.
Have extra ingredients like fried egg, fried dried shrimp, lime, shredded mango and hot chili peppers for diners to add at the table.
I recommend against stir frying the shrimp paste rice, like fried rice for 2 reasons. First, it's not a fried rice dish. The term 'klook' means to mix together. Second, heating up shrimp paste in a wok will stink your house, hands, hair and clothing.

Method

This recipe may seem intimidating and long, but it actually just many mini steps, the rice, the egg and the pork.

Prepping

Peel mango on one side only to give you a better grip when shredding. You won't be using the whole one. The easiest way to shred green mango is to use a shredder (picture 2).

You can also shred the green mango Thai style by using a heavy knife. Hold the peeled green mango in your hand, drop the knife into the mango flesh several times in different spots making marks lengthwise from stem to tip. Then, thinly slice the green mango to get small strips. Repeat the steps.

Peel and thinly slice shallots (picture 3). Thinly slice hot chili peppers. Slice lime into wedges.

Cooking

Fried Beaten Egg: Beat an egg with a fork until well mixed. Heat up a pan or wok. I love using my Griswald cast iron pan for this because if its non-stick properties when it is oiled. When the pan is hot, add a teaspoon of oil. Use a paper towel to oil the pan or wok surface. Too much oil will make the egg puffy, which is not desirable for this dish.

To make the fried beaten egg, you want small amount of oil. Pour the beaten egg in and swirl to cover the surface of the pan (picture 4). You want egg that is not too thin nor too thick. After a minute, when the egg is set, flip to cook the other side (picture 5). The goal is to get cooked yellow egg, not brown. It should take about a minute to cook the egg. When done, roll the egg like you would with crepe (picture 6). When cooled, thinly slice the egg into strips (picture 7). Set it aside.

Fried Dried Shrimp: Heat up the same wok and pan. Add a teaspoon of cooking oil and dried shrimp. Over medium low to low heat, fry the shrimp by mixing it with oil and flipping constantly to prevent burning. It should take 2 minutes. If you use larger dried shrimp, it may take longer to fry until crispy.

Sweetened Pork: Continue with the same pan. You may not need to add any oil. If you do, a teaspoon is plenty. Add pork, palm sugar and fish sauce. The juice from pork will start to come out. Mix all ingredients together and fry until the pork is dry. You'll start to see the bubbles from sugar turning thicker. Take a taste test. Sweetened Pork should be sweet with a slight saltiness. You may want to add more sugar or fish sauce at this point. When done, set the pork aside.

Shrimp Paste Rice: The best and easiest rice to work with is a newly cooked rice, right out of the rice cooker. The steam from the rice helps soften the shrimp paste. If you have left over rice, you can warm it up in a microwave by placing the shrimp paste underneath the rice. The shrimp paste may heat up and splatter in the microwave. If you have the rice covering the shrimp paste, none will escape to stick to your microwave to create that long lasting smell of the shrimp paste.

With the hot rice and shrimp paste, mix them gently with the back of a spoon to get the rice coated with shrimp paste. Within 2 minutes, the white rice should turn brownish.

Plating

Pack the shrimp paste rice you made above into a small bowl. In a serving plate, turn it upside down to release the rice inside. Place sliced shallots, shredded green mango, fried dried shrimp, sweetened pork, a wedge of lime and sliced egg all around the rice. Top with sliced hot chili peppers.