Nam Prik Ong
น้ำพริกอ่อง·(nam prik ong)
Sunday Simmers: Deep Thai Heritage
A pound of ground pork hisses in the hot pan, smashed garlic frying in the rendered fat, supermarket cherry tomatoes collapsing into a jagged sauce. It is often lazily dubbed "Thai Bolognese" by the diaspora, but this is its own beast entirely—built on the funky backbone of shrimp paste and the deliberate "Ong" simmer that reduces those sweet tomatoes and fatty pork into a unified oil. This is the bubbling reality of cooking on a Tuesday night in Chiang Mai, adapted just enough to make it work beautifully out of an American supermarket. Tear off a wedge of raw cabbage and drag it straight through the bowl.
Ingredients
- dried Guajillo chili4 large
- dried Thai bird's eye chili3 med
- coarse kosher salt1 tsp
- garlic5 med clove
- shallot3 med
- Thai shrimp paste1 tbsp
- neutral cooking oil2 tbsp
- ground pork1 lb
- cherry tomato1 1/2 lb
- water1/4 cup
- fish sauce1 tbsp
- cilantro1/4 cup
- scallion1/4 cup
Method
- 01
Drain the soaked dried chilies, squeeze out any excess water, and pound them with the coarse salt in a heavy granite mortar until a rough paste forms.
The salt acts as an abrasive to break down the tough chili skins.
- 02
Add the garlic and shallots, pounding until well integrated, then gently pound in the shrimp paste.
Do not over-pound into a commercial puree; a slightly coarse texture adds a rustic, homemade mouthfeel.
- 03
Heat the neutral oil in a wok or wide skillet over medium heat and fry the freshly pounded chili paste for two minutes.
Stir constantly until the raw smell of the garlic and shrimp paste mellows into an intensely savory aroma.
- 04
Add the ground pork and break it up continuously with a spatula until it is mostly cooked through and no longer pink.
Using pork with at least 15 percent fat is crucial so the dish doesn't become a watery, chalky soup.
- 05
Fold in the quartered cherry tomatoes and water, then reduce the heat to medium-low.
This is the critical "Ong" technique; let the mixture simmer gently while occasionally pressing down on the tomatoes with the back of a spatula to help them burst.
- 06
Simmer for fifteen minutes until the water evaporates and the pork and tomatoes melt together into a thick, rich sauce.
You are looking for a beautiful orange chili oil beginning to separate and pool at the edges of the wok.
- 07
Season with the fish sauce to taste, turn off the heat, and garnish with chopped cilantro and scallions.
The tomatoes and shrimp paste provide most of the seasoning, so add the fish sauce carefully just to hit the perfect savory note.
Notes
Serve family-style with warm sticky rice and crispy pork rinds for scooping.
Cucumber slices, cabbage wedges, and long beans also make excellent accompaniments to cool the palate.
If your supermarket tomatoes are pale and completely devoid of flavor, add exactly one teaspoon each of palm sugar and tamarind paste at the very end.
Real Northern Thai cooks rely strictly on the natural sweetness of local tomatoes, but this is the ultimate diaspora trick to fake the flavor of native Ma Khuea Som.
From Cook Thai in America.