Thai massaman curry

Delicious Thai massaman curry is filling, whether chicken, beef or duck, but also delicate and fragrant with fresher Thai flavours of lime, lemongrass and a wealth of spices. An extremely mild curry, it's one that proves popular with a wide range of hungry diners, including children, and it's easy to cook.

Unexpectedly Thai

This dish uses the paste recipe given to me by my friend Winne, who also gave me great recipes of other Thai curry pastes that I use all the time. And, you can use it whether you make the popular beef version, the traditional poultry version or the equally traditional vegan tofu version.

Massaman curry is something of a curiosity in Thai cuisine. It’s generally held to be the result of influences from Muslim cooking traditions resulting from trade during the 17th century. But, whether those influences specifically came from Persia, India or the Malay Archipelago, or indeed a combination of all of them, is the subject of debate, just as whether its birth in Thailand took place in Southern Thailand or at the lavish court of the Ayutthaya Kingdom in Central Thailand.

Although massaman curry has been a familiar and popular in the Thai cooking canon for hundreds of years, there seems to be more clarity about what it is not. It’s not very spicy. And it’s not generally made with the same ingredients found in many other well known Thai dishes—how many other Thai dishes can you think of that use potatoes?

However, when you scratch the surface, you’ll also discover that its more of a category description than a singular recipe. As with many other dishes, whether Thai, Indian or French, the ingredients, especially in the paste at the core of the dish, vary quite a lot in individual chef’s (and commercial brands’) recipes.

No haste paste

With massaman in particular, I always make my own paste. This is for a number of reasons. One is that I find a lot of readymade pastes on the market, including those by respected brands, tend to be a little on the sweet side for my tastes. Another is that I prefer Winnie’s paste recipe that keeps certain ingredients rather rough compared with the very smooth industrially produced pastes that are the standard on the market. Think of it as liking crunchy peanut butter as opposed to the smooth type.

There are also a couple of other differences compared with many other recipes. For one thing, I learned from Winnie that when it is cooked with beef in Thailand, it is not cooked in 20mins, not cooked in the manner of the “serving suggestions” printed on the side of commercially produced paste jars hoping to lure in weary commuters with the promise of a quick and easy dinner recipe. Rather, it is cooked on a lower heat at a more leisurely pace, ensuring the beef becomes truly tender.

For this reason, I partially cook the potatoes first to avoid them becoming overcooked by the time the meat is perfectly tender if they are added raw in the manner that they are in most recipes out there.

Beefing it up

Yet, the beef itself is an anomaly. While it is offered by many Thai restaurants both in the West and in Thailand, which might lead many to assume that this is part of the Muslim tradition of dietary observations, in fact, in the cuisine of Thai Muslims, who primarily live in southernmost regions of the country, chicken or duck are the more traditional choice.

It seems that, as with so many other evolving food stories, the dominance of beef massaman curry in restaurants has grown out of the combination of factors. One is tourism taking off in Thailand in the 1960s with a massive increase in visitors from the West. Another was the increasing number of Thai emigrants opening restaurants around the world.

Hungry tourists visiting Thailand during the first wave on international long-haul visitors were more impressed with beef. And, it’s not hard to see why the very mild nature of massaman would make it more desirable to many Western palates than more fiery Thai dishes back in the day when "world cuisine" had not yet, well, taken over the world.

Incidentally, if you prefer chicken or duck, both popular versions amongst the Thai, remember that it can indeed be cooked in a shorter time. However, note that the point of cooking the beef curry for longer at a lower heat is not to massively thicken the sauce, but to make the beef tender. The sauce will definitely thicken somewhat, but, like most Thai curries, it is not meant to be overly thick. Unfortunately, in some less salubrious Thai restaurants in the West, cornflour is added to thicken it. This is never done in traditional Thai versions. Rather, in these establishments, it's a matter of commercial survival, pandering to Western expectations of what a (bad) curry should be for an uninformed clientele.

Similarly, the baby corn and bell pepper that I always use when making massaman curry are not usually used in this dish; I'm consciously making it less "authentic". In fact, it is often made pretty much only using the paste, beef, potatoes and coconut milk and you can most certainly cook it that way.

But, I both like these additional flavours in there and the greater variety of textures. And, often I have cooked it looking for ways to sneak in additional fibre when cooking for kids. I prefer using baby potatoes in their skin (yep, yet more fibre) but massaman is more usually cooked with large peeled potatoes that have been cut into large pieces.

This version is for 2 to 3 diners, but you can readily do the arithmetic if you want to cater for a larger group. It scales in a a fairly prosaic way; no hidden tricks etc.

3 top tips to get this recipe right:

• In many other Thai dishes, I prefer to cook with large, split pieces of lemongrass. But this is one where I think it really serves better to be finely ground into the paste. However, since it is a rather tough plant, it is very difficult to get rid of hard wood-like pieces and thus I advise using readymade lemongrass paste if you can source it

• I use shrimp paste in the curry paste, though many recipes use fish sauce instead, and some both. Most vegan/vegetarian versions, including traditional Thai veggie versions, use tamarind paste instead. Any of these are good. And, if you can’t get your hands on any of these, two tablespoons of brown sauce (such as HP Sauce or A1 Steak Sauce) work as a good ersatz option

• If you can't get your hands on dried red spur chillies used a lot in Thai cooking, you can substitute with other dried chillies, but you will need to approximate quantities. These chillies are fairly mild. So, if using dried chillies such as dried dandicut chillies (which are both much larger and a lot hotter) I would probably only use half a chilli to return the comparable level of spiciness

Shopping list

for the Thai massaman curry paste

• 5 shallots, unpeeled

• 2 cloves of garlic; unpeeled

• 2 tbspns galangal; sliced

• 2 tspns minced lemongrass

• 1 tspn shrimp paste

• 1 tbspn coriander seeds

• 1 tspn coarse sea salt

• 2 tspns green cardamom pods

• 1 tspn cumin seeds

• 2 lime leaves

• 3 cloves

• 1 tspn whole black peppercorns

• 3 dried red spur chillies (i.e. mild-moderate), deseeded, soaked and chopped

• A dash of peanut oil (or sunflower oil)

• A little water, if needed

for the Thai massaman curry

• Approx. 400g lean beef, cubed into bite-sized pieces

• 2 medium red onions (or brown); halved and sliced

• 1 large red bell pepper; sliced vertically

• 1 large, mild red chilli; deseeded and sliced

• 1 can (400g) coconut milk (full fat)

• Approx. 125g baby corn; cut in half

• Approx. 200g small young potatoes; scrubbed and cut into large pieces

• The juice of 1 fresh lime

• 1 tspn tamarind paste

• 1 tbspn soft brown sugar

• 1 whole star anise

• Approx 4 tbspns peanut oil (or sunflower oil)

sides and condiments

• Rice — Thai sticky rice, jasmine rice, or Thai black sticky rice

  
  

Cooking Method

for the Thai massaman curry paste

1. Heat a wok or frying pan on a medium heat, dry-fry the whole shallots and garlic until soft and the skins turn golden; approx. 5-7mins. Remove and replace with the galangal and dry-fry for 2–3mins, releasing the aroma. Remove and place to one side.

2. To the same wok, add all of the dry spices (e.g. seeds, peppercorns, pods and cloves) and toast for approx. 2mins, stirring continuously to prevent burning then remove from the heat. Once cooled, add to a spice grinder together, and grind (you can also do this manually using a pestle and mortar)

3. Peel the garlic and shallots and add to a mini-chopper, together with the galangal and soaked dried red chillies. Whiz in the mini chopper until finally chopped. Add the minced lemongrass, shrimp paste and all of the liquid ingredients and chop together, adding the ground spices as you go along (You can also do this using a blender)

4. Store in a bowl until ready to cook the curry. You can store it sealed in the fridge for up to a week before using it

   
   

   

   
   
   
   

the Thai massaman curry

1. Cook your potatoes first, boiling for about 5 to 6mins or until roughly three-quarters cooked. If using larger potatoes cut into pieces, you may need to boil them slightly longer. You can actually do this days before and store sealed in the fridge

2. In a wok or pot with a lid, heat 2 tbspns of peanut oil on a medium heat. Add the beef and brown, adding a little salt and 1 tbspn of the paste. When the beef is browned, remove with a sieve spoon and place to one side, leaving all the juices in the wok

3. Add the rest of the curry paste and sizzle for a few minutes. Add the onions and stir in, sizzling them for about 2mins before adding the red bell pepper and whole star anise. Stir in and sizzle for about 4mins, then add all of the coconut milk

4. Increase the heat and bring to the boil. Boil for about 3mins, then reduce to a healthy simmer. Cover and cook for about 10mins. Add the beef, re-cover and reduce to a gentle simmer and cook for a further 10mins

5. Add the tamarind paste, lime juice and sugar, stirring in. Allow these elements to cook in for a minute or so, then add the baby corn. Stir, re-cover and gently simmer for a further 15mins. By now, the sauce should have reduced and the beef should become rather soft and tender (if not, simmer a little longer)

6. When the beef is tender and the sauce is nearing optimal consistency, add the pre-cooked potatoes and stir-in. Re-cover and gently simmer for a further 5 to 6mins. When the potatoes are perfectly cooked, cover and allow to rest for a few mins before taking to table together with the rice of your choice

   
   

Alternatives

The carnivore versions of this dish are the most common; beef or various poultry, but a version using tofu is equally traditional and the paste for this vegetarian, actually vegan version, is made using tamarind paste in lieu of shrimp paste or fish sauce. This traditional version actually cooks a lot quicker and it's process is somewhat reversed: the potatoes go in first and, when they and the curry are almost perfectly cooked, the tofu cubes are added and stirred in because they need barely a few minutes of cooking.

Another vegan version that I think works well, is to use whole closed cup mushrooms instead of meat or tofu. In this version I simply add them to the sauce at the same time as the corn allowing them to simmer in the sauce for some time, absorbing all of those rich flavours.

Weirdly, I have never cooked a pescatarian massaman curry. I have never seen it on a menu, neither in Thailand nor in any other part of the world. Normally, my curiosity might mean I would have a try just to see what I made of it. But, it's global utter absence intuitively makes me suspect all those chefs might already know something or, when the mood took me, I didn't have access to the one seafood I had thought would work: octopus. Note to self: cook an octopus massaman curry.

Pairings

As with most Thai dishes, I most often I end up having this dish with sparkling water and a slice of lime or a dash of mango juice. Or occasionally a cold beer such as Leo or Singha, with which it is great.

But it also works well with red wines, especially during colder months. Massaman curry is a curious beast. It's most definitely fragrant and complex, but there is something about how the beef and potatoes cook down in this very mild dish. Its creamy sauce is more "Western" than an Indian curry. It reminds me more of a beef carbonade, an Italian spezzatino or even a Lancashire hotpot than it does nihari gosht or a Goan beef curry. As such, I think it works with different wines to those I favour when cutting through very spicy sauces.

Two wines with which I have enjoyed this dish are Château de Colombe Sainte Colombe Castillon - Côtes de Bordeaux 2022 and Château Larrivet Haut-Brion Le Bordeaux 2016. On the whole I have instinctively headed towards red Bordeaux and, because of these two, I'm reluctant to wander too far from them.

But, it has also worked well with medium bodied Italian reds such as Bardolino and Nebbiolo d'Alba, even though I can't recall specific ones right now.