One of my favourite school lunches is similar to this one. It is called spicy stir-fried pork and long beans, or pat prik king moo in Thai. I took this picture at Pornsiri Kitchen in Samut Prakan where I recently spent the afternoon making Thai cooking videos. I didn’t actually eat this one as it was for a customer. (Even other people have to wait these days while I photograph their food first!) It looks a lot spicier than the version we have at school. The recipe in one of my cook books is slightly different. It calls for 300 grams of pork, a quarter of a cup of prik king chili paste, 200 grams of long beans, 1 red spur chili, 3 shredded kaffir lime leaves, 1 tablespoon of palm sugar and 1 tablespoon of fish sauce. You need to cut the pork up into small pieces and then marinate it for 5 minutes in fish sauce. Cut the long beans up into one inch lengths. Blanch them in hot boiling water until nearly cooked. Then loosely tie them. Heat the oil in the wok and then saute the chili paste until fragrant. Add the pork and keep stirring until it is done. Season to taste with sugar and fish sauce. Add the beans and stir well. Garnish with shredded kaffir lime leaves and red chili.

The local food shop version is a little different. After all, it only costs 25 baht (about 60 cents) so you cannot expect too much preparation. First heated up the wok and then add the pieces of pork. Give it a good stir. Add the chili paste and then some chicken stock. Let it cook for a while longer while continually stirring. Season with some sugar and fish sauce. Most food shops will add a touch of MSG. Add more chicken stock if needed. Then add the long beans. Keep stirring. Make sure you don’t over cook them as they are better if still crunchy. And that is about it! If you like, you can download the cooking video of this meal being cooked.

http://www.enjoythaifood.com/videos/

It is the third video in Set 2. (Sorry about some of the websites opening slowly the last few days. There has been a surge in popularity and the server was having trouble coping with too many people connecting at the same time. Hopefully we will get this sorted soon.)

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