When I was in Chiang Mai in Northern Thailand, I followed a private cooking lesson, and tried several local restaurants. A dish that featured on the menu of local restaurants that serve Northern Thai food was “hors d’oeuvres”, an assortment of various raw and steamed vegetables, sausage, hard-boiled egg, and pork crackling with “dips”. The second recipe for such a dip that I am sharing with you is Nam Phrik Num, also written as Nam Prik Noom. It was not featured in my cooking class, but we did get this at all of the restaurants. Its main component is roasted green chillies, but it is only mildly spicy. We especially enjoyed it as a dip for various types of (pork) sausage, but it also worked well with the various raw and steamed vegetables.

Use large green fresh chili peppers. If they are not spicy enough, you can add a green Thai bird chili.

Ingredients

Makes about 250 ml (1 cup)

• 150 grams medium spicy fresh green chillies
• 50 grams shallots
• 25 grams garlic
• 15 grams cilantro (with stems)
• coarse salt to taste
• fish sauce to taste, about 2 Tbsp
• freshly squeezed lime juice to taste, about 2 tsp

Instructions

Preheat an oven proof frying pan on the stove. Preheat the broiler.

Add the chillies, garlic, and shallots without peeling them first.

Place the pan under the broiler at the highest position (closest to the broiling element). Broil until the chili peppers are nicely charred.

You could of course also roast the vegetables on the stove only, turning them as needed.

Place the chillies, garlic, and shallots in a bowl, and cover with plastic wrap. The residual heat will steam the vegetables.

When they have cooled off, peel the garlic and shallots. Remove the stems from the chillies and chop them coarsely. Place them in a mortar and pound with a pestle until you have broken up everything.

Now add the cilantro and a pinch of coarse salt.

Pound until the cilantro has been incorporated and you have a coarse but homogeneous texture.

Add fish sauce and lime juice, and stir with a spoon to incorporate. Taste and adjust the seasoning with salt, fish sauce, or lime juice.

Serve with a selection of:

• steamed squash
• steamed eggplant (various types)
• steamed cabbage
• raw Napa cabage
• raw cucumber
• steamed longbeans
• raw winged beans
• hard-boiled egg
• Thai sausage
• pork crackling

It is nice to serve with several dips, one more recipe will follow. I already posted a recipe for a pork and tomato dip called Nam Phrik Ong.