Dry Fried Pork Curry with Peppercorns

Muu Kua Kling

Muu Kua Kling


Serves 2 Cooks in 60 minutes Difficulty Easy


Dry fried pork with peppercorns is a curry dish from the South of Thailand. It’s called Muu Kua Kling in Thai. It is an old fashioned recipe and only a true southerner will feature this on their menu.

The dish used to be popular as it can be kept longer than Thai curries that use coconut milk. Muu Kua Kling is fried dry and can last for days in the fridge. Working parents would leave this dish prepared so the rest of the family could help themselves whenever hungry.

I was recently asked to teach this dish at my Khao Lak Thai cooking class and my chefs diligently prepared everything from scratch, starting with the curry paste.

If you want to save some time, you will need some black pepper curry paste. If your local Asian shop does not have this paste then it will have to be a good 30 minutes pounding ingredients in a pestle and mortar 🙂 Trust me, it tastes so good it will be well worth it.

Ingredients

Kua Kling Curry Paste

  • 10 dried chilli
  • 3 green chilli
  • 3 cloves garlic
  • 1 tbsp black pepper corns
  • 1 piece fresh turmeric 2cm long
  • 1/4 tsp salt
  • 1 lemon grass stalk
  • 2 shallots
  • Zest from 1/4 kafir lime
  • 1 tsp galangal
Muu kua kling ingredients
What you will need for the curry paste.

Kua Kling Ingredients

  • 300g minced pork
  • 50g curry paste
  • 1 thumb sized piece of galangal, finely chopped
  • 5 kafir lime leaves, stalk removed and finely sliced
  • 1/2 sweet chilli, cut into thin strips a couple of cm long
  • 1 lemon grass stalk, finely chopped
  • 3 stalks green pepper corns
  • 1 tsp fish sauce
  • 1 tsp sugar
  • 1 tsp stock
  • 1/2 tsp shrimp paste
  • 1 tbsp oil
What you will need.

Method

  1. Smash all the curry paste ingredients in a pestle and mortar until you have a smooth paste, takes approximately 30 minutes.
  2. Heat the oil in a wok or large frying pan and add the curry paste and shrimp paste.
  3. Add the pork and stir fry for a few minutes, breaking up the pork and mixing everything well.
  4. Add the pepper corns, galangal, sweet chilli, lemon grass, lime leaves, fish sauce, sugar and stock.
  5. Stir fry all the ingredients together for a few minutes and remove from the heat.

To Serve

Serve the Dry Fried Pork Curry with Peppercorns on a serving plate with side plates of steamed rice.

Hope you enjoy Muu Kua Kling by Apple 🍎 Riverside Thai Cooking in Khao Lak.