Beef Panang is considered a dry curry (for Thailand at least) because it contains less roux (liquid base), and specifically, less coconut milk than other Thai curries. It is also one of the best uses for lean/tough beef, which is great since that's pretty much all we have around here. Panang is an easy dish to make and my way is even easier than most. I've tried it the normally advocated way, by heating curry paste in coconut milk first, but I've found this is a waste of time when using ready-made curry paste. So without further ado:

INGREDIENTS

• Beef - Any cut. Any quantity approximating that in the photos below (about 1.5 pounds).


• Thai red curry paste - Suitable quantity depends on brand; see photos below for reference


• Coconut milk - About one cup


• Fresh kaffir lime leaves - Slice these into strips. I used 2-3 big leaves in the photos below.


• Nampla (filtered fish sauce) - Suitable quantity depends on brand; I only used a couple dashes since I was using a fairly pungent brand. Remember, the only 2 reasons to use nampla are to make things SALTIER and FUNKIER - it doesn't make a dish magically Thai, but it sure can funktify (esp. if you throw it in a hot frying pan).


• OPTIONAL: Raw cane sugar - A tablespoon or so. I forego the use of sugar because I can't stand sweet curries, and this dish already contains coconut milk.

DIRECTIONS

Cut the beef into strips. Traditionally, it should be cut into thinner strips than this, but I like bite-sized chunks. Cut the kaffir lime leaves up as well. The baggie in the background contains the red curry paste (we only used about half).

Heat a bit of vegetable oil in the pan and add the red curry paste. Fry it for a couple minutes on medium high heat to activate it, stirring rapidly to prevent sticking and burning. Then add the meat and stir often.

Did I forget to mention that Nam was cooking while I took photos? Anyway, the baby started waking up at this point so the coconut milk was added earlier than usual - we usually wait until the meat is slightly browned but it turned out not to make a difference. Also, the Quick 'n Dirty series of recipes is designed for those that need to display adaptability on occasion, so they are meant to be stretched and improvised upon.

After the coconut milk is added, add a couple splashes of nampra (be careful, it's really salty! You can always add more later, as well as sugar if you want) and also the lime leaves. Then turn the heat down to low-medium and let it simmer until either the meat becomes unbelievable soft and succulent, or tempted by the heavenly smell, you start scooping ladlefuls of panang onto hot mounds of rice and let the little piggy in you take over.

Alternatively, you can serve with boiled egg halves and veggies of some kind.

Note that you can eat the lime leaves, but they are a bit tough. I usually put them to the side.

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This is C. Buddha signing off with today's Quick 'n Dirty recipe - funky and delicious, yet simple and semi-authentic-ish Beef Panang.

Even with houses being built up all around us, the best views will remain.

These went really well with the snake soup last week. We forgot to take photos of them past the prep stage, though. They were salted and deep fried, and then their heads were taken off which allowed easy deveining ala shrimp. As far as I could tell they were a cross between a cricket and a potato bug (mmm, potatoes), but as large as your thumb.

I had snake soup for breakfast this morning. It was one of the snakes on this page.

More to follow.

This photo was taken back in March.

This was the last gas station in Maha Sarakham to sell 95 octane gasoline with no ethanol added. It greatly surprised me to find them selling it because all of the other stations had gradually phased it out by the end of the previous year - PTT and Petronas were the first to go, then Esso, then finally, what I thought was the last holdout, Caltex. But I stopped at this station (I even forget what company it was!) on the way back from the road to Borabu, a neighboring town, and got a full tank of the good stuff - unadulterated 95 oc (and it may very well have been the last tank my car will get, ever - it's VQ30 is running fine on 95 gasohol, tho).

The problem is, this station is too far away and off the beaten path. When I went to the labor office (located on the road to Borabu) to renew my work permit a few days ago, I looked at the pumps when passing by and saw that they had finally switched to the ethanol crap like everywhere else.

Sad.

Note: The VQ30 in my A33 Cefiro is running on 95 gasohol. The RB20 in the S60 Crown is running on regular (non-eth) 91. They are both running fine, but I'd still prefer to run them on non-eth 95 because it runs smoother, gets better mileage, and isn't robbing food from people's mouths.