Sour Yellow Curry with Cha-Om Omelette

sour yellow curry with a cha om omelette

Gairng Som Kai Cha Om


Serves 2 Cooks in 40 minutes Difficulty Easy


Gairng Som is a sour curry from the South of Thailand, som meaning sour in English. You can also eat this dish in Bangkok but it goes under a different name, Gairng Luang (yellow curry).

Gairng Som Kai Cha Om would be Sour Yellow Curry with a Cha Om (Acacia) Leaf Omelette. I would happily teach this dish in my Thai cooking class here in Khao Lak if anyone fancies a curry with a stronger taste.

In Thailand we consider this curry to be a healthy curry as it does not contain coconut milk, therefore there’s less fat. Just a little oil is used to fry the omelette.

Cha Om leaves are part of the acacia family, in English the leaves are Climbing Wattle. The leaves contain lots of vitamin A and vitamin C and we consider the leaves a natural anti-biotic. However, the curry is not recommended for pregnant women and breast feeding mothers as it affects breast milk.

If you can not source Cha Om leaves you could leave them out of the recipe or replace with some sliced garlic to give the omelette more taste. All other ingredients should be fairly easy to obtain.

Ingredients

  • 1 tbsp yellow curry paste
  • 1 tsp shrimp paste
  • juice of 1 to 2 limes
  • 1 tbsp sugar
  • pinch of salt
  • 1 tbsp fish sauce
  • good handful of cha om leaves
  • 2 eggs
  • 8 shrimps
  • 1 cup of water
  • 4 tbsp oil
Ingredients for sour yellow curry
What you will need.

Method

  1. Whisk the eggs. Roughly tear up the cha om leaves and mix together with the eggs.
  2. Heat the oil in a large frying pan and pour in the egg mix and make an omelette. The omelette should be a little crispy on both sides. When cooked remove from the pan, drain off any excess oil and chop the omelette into 2.5cm squares and set to one side.
  3. Bring the water to the boil in a medium sauce pan and add the yellow curry paste and shrimp paste.
  4. Add the fish sauce, salt, sugar, shrimps and lime juice and simmer until the shrimps are cooked.
  5. Throw in the chopped omelette pieces and simmer a couple more minutes, then remove from the heat.

To Serve

Serve in a large bowl. As this is a sour curry, in Thailand we would eat the curry with something salty, like salted fish and eat everything with Jasmine rice.

Hope you enjoy Gairng Som Kai Cha Om by Apple 🍎 Riverside Thai Cooking in Khao Lak.