Nam Prik Ong is essentially a chili tomato and pork based dipping sauce made to deliver part cooked vegetables.

Nam Prik Ong

The only way to describe this dish is as a spicy, Thai version of a bolognese sauce. Like most local dishes in Thailand the vegetables for Nam Prik Ong should keep their firm, semi-crunchy texture. Where-as the sauce needs to be well broken down, since it serves as a dip. For Khao Soy Nam Kua you need to keep the meat in larger chunks to give the dish more substance with the noodles. Try to buy vine ripened tomatoes as in Chiang Rai you could really taste the sunshine. It is this sweeter, fuller flavour that really makes the difference in both dishes.

Ingredients

Nam Prik Ong Sauce: 300g lean pork 250g very ripe tomato Finely chopped 4 shallots (or 1 small red onion) Finely chopped 5 garlic cloves Peeled and pureed 3 mild red chillis Seeds removed, chopped 2 dried thai (or birdseye) chillis 1 tsp salt 1 tbsp dark soy sauce 100ml water 1 tsp onion powder (optional) 10 stalks coriander (stems removed) 2 spring onion (ifnely sliced) MSG/ Salt to taste Vegetables: 100g baby sweetcorn 100g green beans Ends trimmed ¼ cauliflower Cut into roughly 2cm pieces ½ cucumber peeled, cut into chunky 5cm lengths

How

Chop the tomato, shallots, garlic, chillies.  Fry the pork in a slosh of vegetable oil until it starts to brown. Add all the chopped ingredients. Cook for around 5 minutes until everything is browning.  Add the soy, water, onion powder, salt.  Cook for around 10 minutes until the ingredients have incorporated and the liquid has reduced by half. For the vegetables steaming is the best way of retaining flavour and goodness.  Over a vigorous boil steam for around 5 minutes. Leave for 1 minute to cook and to allow the residual heat to cook the vegetables a little more.

To serve Nam Prik Ong