Results tagged “Thai Chili Garden” from NoMuse

Several years ago, while working for a company in Orem, Utah, I was taken to the Thai Chili Garden for my first exposure to thai food. I started with Pad Thai and quickly worked my way into Spicey Pad Ped before taking the plunge into thai curries. I fell quite in love with mussamun curry. I queried the proprietors for their recipe without success and I googled for potential recipes as well. I finally found a recipe which looked promising.

After investing well over $50 in exotic ingredients and spending several hours grinding whole spices by hand with a mortar and pestle, I rustled up the worst approximation of mussamun imaginable and terminated my efforts to make this thai dish at home.

Then, a few months ago, Nancie McDermott's "Real Thai, The Best of Thailand's Regional Cooking" caught my eye as I was doing some poking for information on sourdough bread in the cooking section of a local Barnes & Noble. I bought Nancie's book and worked up the wherewithal for another attempt over the next few weeks.

The mussamun was exquisite. It is also labor intensive and I better understand why it is a special occasion curry in Thailand.

Do to my lifestyle changes earlier this year, I've had to make adjustments to the recipes from Real Thai. I've noted the omissions and substitutions at the end of each of the applicable recipes linked below.

mussamun curry paste
tamarind liquid
mussamun curry