Quick Thai Jungle Curry

I absolutely love jungle curry - it is definitely my favourite of the Thai curries - but when making it authentically it can be a bit of a faff with a fairly long list of ingredients that are hard to get hold of outside a Chinatown or oriental food store. That can be seen with the version that I have posted previously here.

With this one though all the ingredients can all be found in the high street supermarkets: Tesco, Sainsbury, Waitrose and so on. Yay!

You can use chicken (or duck) instead of pork or even up the veg and make it entirely vegetarian (obviously you can use vegetable stock if that is the case). While not as amazing as the original this is definitely giving a go if you don’t have the time or inclination for the former.

Be aware that commercial Thai curry pastes can vary considerably in taste and strength - I use Mae Ploy which actually being Thai in origin is quite pungent (in a good way) but you may need to alter the paste quantities given below depending on what you have, and of course, to taste.


Quick Jungle Curry
serves 2

400 ml weak pork (or chicken) stock
40g red curry paste (about 2 tbsp + 2 tsp)
½ tsp galangal paste
½ tsp ginger, grated
1 birds eye chilli, finely sliced
300g pork (I used fillet), sliced thinly
5 tsp fish sauce
½ tsp sugar
75g tinned bamboo shoot (mine came in strips)
100g baby corn, cut in half length-ways
50g shitake mushrooms, sliced
75g green beans, cut in half
4-5 kaffir lime leaves
10 basil leaves

Heat up a wok and add in the stock, red curry paste, galangal, chilli & ginger. Bring to the boil, stirring to combine.

Reduce heat to a simmer and add the beans and babycorn.

Cook the veg for a minute then add the pork and cook for another minute.

Add the fish sauce and sugar. Stir to mix then gently stir in the bamboo shoot, mushrooms and kaffir leaves into the wok. 

Cover the wok and bring to boil. Turn the heat to medium and let it cook for 5-6 minutes. Add in the basil leaves. Give it a quick stir and cook for 2 minutes. Serve with jasmine rice.