Which Thai curry is the best Thai curry?

posited on probably never having had a very authentic take on any of them green is my favourite

was always a red fan but i mostly just get the noodle dishes these days

yellow

while I have had a lot of thai curry I feel I am nowhere near discovering the answer to this

I do not know the objective answer to this and have probably never had a super-authentic Thai curry*, but lately I've been going for about 50/50 Penang vs Massaman

* the guy behind me at work for a while brought lunches in prepared by his Thai wife, and an amazing dense fog of aerosolized chilli and fish sauce smell would be unleashed when he reheated them - I like Westernised Thai food but if the real thing is that spicy I probably need to sit it out. the fragrance was a bit much for a poorly ventilated office tbh

red - don't think i've had
green - great
yellow - don't think i've had
massaman - haven't had
penang - great

i'm not a "foodie"

I love curry but coconut milk is a time delay event.

I always get option paralysis at Thai restaurants

green

Used to be yellow, now I favor red.

green w/ fresh bamboo shoots and eggplants 'n' stuff

I get massaman lately, exclusively

shd probly give yellow a spin

I thought the green was nearly the same as red but with heaps of cilantro. Anyway, it is roasty khao soi.

green is made from green chilies

Also is usually spicier?

Than red ime

hmm idk bout that

yes, it is

Pumpkin underrated vegetable for curries probably because of the disgusting thanksgiving pie and spiced latte industrial complex

pumpkin otm

green but i've only tried green, red, yellow. massaman seems kind of like my jam

Massaman rules. The tradition version is potato and peanut heavy. Might get my vote I haven’t decided yet

all are classic, penang the only one that has sometimes trascended into A Perfect Taste

green

theres a vegan thai place about 5 minutes from my house and their green curry is the business

love the green and red equally. supposedly red is traditionally the spiciest (made from dried red chiles which are more intense than fresh green, so makes sense to me) but Westernized versions don't always adhere to this

interesting thread timing, was thinking of doing a Japanese curry project

https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1020451-japanese-curry-brick

There are few foods I'm more perplexed and disgusted by than Japanese curry

Does anybody pound their own paste? I don't remember where I read it, but apparently it's extremely entirely necessary to pound your own paste. I cook some (lots) of Thai food at home but seldom (rarely) make curry, oddly enough. I don't think I can bring myself to not pound the paste and yet pounding the paste seems like a lot of work especially for wimps like me with a decidely non-industrial mortar/pestle situation

have been known to

probably not the best recipe out there but I’ve made this multiple times, including making the paste: https://www.bonappetit.com/recipe/chicken-khao-soi

that looks great

i love japanese curry but imo it's supposed to be a kind of shit convenience food, putting all this time and effort into it and doing it artisanally is a betrayal of its heritage as some westernized shit the british foisted on them imo

that's just japanese curry though

that's like saying one should only eat instant ramen, wtf

sorry for derailing thread

idk J-curry is just like currywurst as far as I'm concerned: no thanks

That Khao Soi recipe looks delicious I'm gonna make it

I am also perplexed by japanese curry.

The nicest one I ever had was massaman
At home I used to make green under the incorrect impression it was less spicy than red (it's just based on green chillies as harbl said and is likey more spicy)

Man I really want a massaman curry now

I had a pumpkin/squash Burmese curry once and it was one of the best things I've ever had

tbh i've always had the same suspicion, walking by boxes of the stuff in Japantown supermarket - looks like some nasty boxed gravy or whatever. But that recipe looks like it has some actual curry authenticity, but with a Japanese twist- kombu and shiitakes added to a pretty typical-looking (curry) spice blend. i also like the idea that instead of coconut milk, the roux from the curry will thicken up the sauce. now i *really* want to make this, but thread also reminded me i have some khao soi paste in back of fridge that i ought to finish first
xpost

supposedly red is traditionally the spiciest (made from dried red chiles which are more intense than fresh green, so makes sense to me) but Westernized versions don't always adhere to this

I have never been anywhere near Thailand and can certainly believe that an extra level of authenticity flips the comparison again though

I don't really do spicy so I am wary of restaurant green curry due to unpredictable spice levels, and I definitely stay far away from jungle curry (kaeng pa? I assume it has some other canonical name in the US since nobody has mentioned it itt yet) as I have seen it make true chilli aficionados weep and sweat from body parts I didn't even know had sweat glands

do y'all's thai restaurants not allow for you to specify spice levels?

the menus often have a rating next to each dish to say how spicy they are, but some places don't do that. the rating helps although is obv kind of subjective. or you can ask the waiter, but again, subjective and may depend on the waiter's English skills, or your Thai skills

generally the menus I've seen don't outright specify that you can vary the spice level but if you ask then they're usually happy to ask the chef to do so

(my Dad often asks if things are spicy because he likes things to be very spicy, and then the waiter usually replies "we can make it milder for you" and then he tells them "oh no, I like it spicy" and then the waiter is either totally confused or at least not totally convinced the white guy actually wants a spicy curry; I am not sure if this conversation actually helps him get the desired spice level)

I think in (some?) Indian restaurants in the US they ask what level of spice you want it. That's unheard of here in the UK ime. But what's classed as 'medium' varies from restaurant to restaurant!

The Indian over the road from my old flat in Edinburgh always asked us how spicy we wanted curries because they knew we were chilliheads - it was great ordering up super spicy Dhansaks.

unrelated to spiciness but I miss the now-defunct Chinese over the road from my flat which would give us the Chinese menu (just because we went in there way too often and liked to order something new each time, and it had extra items not on the regular menu) and be very patient and indulge us asking what everything on it was

(o/h knows a little Japanese so could recognise some glyphs but not translate the actual menu items)

I had a pumpkin/squash Burmese curry once and it was one of the best things I've ever had

― kinder, Saturday, September 14, 2019 10:20 AM (two hours ago)

yes! i feel like my preference for yellow Thai curry is lol colored by its similarity to this

My spice preference varies from pepper to pepper. I believe Thai typically gets the head from raw bird’s eye chilies? Very hot! Too acidic or something for me, I’m a medium.

With Chinese tho, (arbol or similar for the spicy, Sichuan for the numbing) I can go max spicy and one time I smoked too much weed and ate the grandma sauce right out of the jar with a spoon

agree, I can go the hottest ever for indian food but the hottest ever for thai food just wipes out my palate and I can't taste anything.

ok, this thread persuaded me to go out for curry

the wife had a pumpkin panang curry, it was very good

i had a lamb shank massaman curry HOLY SHIT that was nice, went well with the bloody mary with thai chili as well

if i could change my vote it would definitely now be massaman

I've only ever had the colour-named ones. Massaman sounds/looks very tasty, must try. I still have some lamb shank in the freezer..
Out of red, green and yellow I think I prefer the latter, though it's all good basically. Thai restaurant around the corner in the city I used to live had a great yellow one with onions, potatoes, and thai basil, damn I miss that place.

mussaman is best at first but the deep cut long-timer is panang for sure

Green 4 Lyfe

Yeah I am a big massaman fan but it’s too sweet to be quotidian curry, unlike green/red, both of which I am so enamoured, I would gargle either sauce like mouthwash

I think I really want to vote for fish curry, which is a strong contender for my favourite food in the world, but I'm not sure how it fits into this taxonomy. is panang just a sub-category of red? there is a lot to consider here, & the deeper we go, the more shapeless it all seems

There's fish sauce in green, probably in all of them I guess, standard Thai ingredient I thought

i made a red curry yesterday because of this thread. with paste from a can so nothing too involved, but was tasty enough. served with rice noodles, carrot, cauliflower, mushrooms and crispy baked tofu

Ain't no curry like a green thai curry cause a green thai curry don't stop

I wouldn’t vote for it, but jungle curry is something else. Thinner other curries and very sour, with whole green peppercorn clusters throughout. Yikes.

Than.

Jungle is what I usually order when I visit the good local Thai restaurant. I keep tins of green and red curry paste in the pantry, they make for quick dinners, and I suspect they're used by the bad local Thai restaurant.

My understanding is that many Thai people use Mae Ploy curry paste at home. Green curry benefits a lot from being made fresh but I think red curry paste is fine.

The other night I made the error of making a masaman from a jar of paste - instead of a rich, brown, cinnamon / anise experience it looked and tasted like a sweet red curry, even with a heavy lick of tamarind paste, a couple of star anise and some cardamom pods. I have no idea why it was so different but the times I've made it from scratch it's been amazing; this one was merely nice.
This is the good stuff - it's a lot more work but mmmmmmm: https://www.cooked.com/uk/Charmaine-Solomon/Hardie-Grant-Books/The-Complete-Asian-Cookbook/Thailand/Kaeng-masaman-recipe

Sorry guys, I'm gonna have to go with Steph.

To curry favor, favor curry.

What are your Thai cookbooks! I've always just referred to Vatcharin Bhumichitr, not by choice, but because it was the cookbook that was in the shared house I was living in when I got into cooking in like 2003 or so.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

*bites nails*

xxp i've got a few, including the big pink david thompson book that doesnt get a lot of use because it is so authentic and therefore so time consuming

Ah good tip, I'll check it out. I don't remember the exact wording but I love that moment when Steingarten said that in his time in Thailand, he ate dozens of meals and they were all of them diverse and different and all of them absolutely memorable. I've never been

Massaman is my fave.

If you are in SF, and have some money, try Kin Khao - a Michelin-starred Thai restaurant downtown. It's delicious! My only issue is that they make things hella-spicy, with no option to tone it down. I usually end up drinking way too much water when I go. But it's really good.

Hard disagree. There's lots of good-great Thai in SF though, Kin Khao is not one of them.

What are your faves?

voted massaman but they're all super good

i voted red because that is the one i make and it's rather good imo

What do we get if we voted for the winning curry?

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

goddamn i was literally the deciding vote on this, and i changed my opinion after voting

You're the Jill Stein voter of this poll.

surely the jill stein voter is whoever voted "other"?

I voted for Hillary and khao soi (other)

Yellow and Massaman are my two favorites.

Ok time to investigate Penang, I guess!

thanks for the cookbook recs itt. ready to makemy own paste

fwiw when i was in culinary school we had a Asian food demo. class and i remember the instructor recommending mae ploy thai curry pastes. used to use the green one a fair bit and it's quite good. think i'm gonna pick up a panang since i've never had that. ime depending on where one lives and seasonality, procuring all the ingredients (like galangal and lime leaves, even lemongrass) can be a challenge