Thai Isaan-Style Jungle Curry (แกงป่าไก่)

A lighter Thai curry with no coconut in sight. This dish from the Isaan region of Northern Thailand combines a medley of meat, seafood and/or vegetables with a ferocious hot and sour gravy.

In the dense Isaan jungle region of North-East Thailand, at one time you’d be hard-put to get your hands on fresh coconut. This inland region of Thailand is well-known for producing tropical fruits such as mango, papaya and citrus as well as rice, but coconuts palms don’t feel so welcome. For this reason, their signature curry dish, ‘gaeng pa’ (แกงป่าไก่), is actually made with no coconut whatsoever. The lack of coconut creates a lighter Thai curry dish that is hard-hitting and vibrant with nothing to buffer or cloud the flavours. It also makes this curry dish unapologetically spicy, which is a hallmark of Isaan cuisine. The Isaans traditionally understood the value of chilli as a preservative, which is why it’s so extensively used in their dishes. When chillies were brought to Asia just a few hundred years ago, they were adopted and cultivated by poorer, tropical regions due to their ability to preserve food before refrigeration technology arrived. Nowadays you’ll actually find coconut feature more in the region’s cuisine due to shifting social inequalities between North and South Thailand, but this dish still remains a triumph of flavour with a story of Thai resourcefulness at its core. Let’s go!