An ancient Siamese dish, the chuu chee (ฉู่ฉี่) on today’s menus is typically represented as a crisp, fried fish covered in a delightfully thick, warming and flavorful coconut-based curry. While this portrayal is certainly alluring to diners, it may surprise you to learn that chuu chee is not always prepared as a coconut-based dish and is not even considered a proper curry.
Rather, chuu chee is served in consistencies ranging from a thick, wet broth made with coconut cream to a dryer, stir-fry-like dish, in which the paste is fried in pork lard. Moreover, although fish is often the meat of choice, shrimp, chicken and pork were also popular in the past.
This Masterclass explores the path of chuu chee dishes from their first appearance in Siamese culinary literature, and investigates the dish’s narratives of aesthetics and patterns, as described by the cooks of the past.
A salty-sweet, water-based chuu chee dish that features a thick, almost dry sauce. The deep burnt-red and shiny chuu chee sauce clings to the skin of the crispy mackerel, gold-colored from frying the fish in pork lard. The aromatic profile of the chuu chee complements the mackerel’s rich, full-bodied flavor. Although chuu chee is usually made using freshwater fish, saltwater fish, especially mackerel, is featured in chuu chee dishes prepared along the coasts of the Central Plains. This is especially common during the rainy season, when the mackerel is plentiful and of excellent quality.
This chuu chee features avocado-green banana chilies and the pinkish mixture of pork, shrimp and crab meats. The chilies are sliced open and stuffed with a mixture of the meats, which is seasoned with the basic saam gluuhr (สามเกลอ) paste – the Siamese trio of coriander roots, Thai garlic and white peppercorns. The stuffed chilies are then steamed before being cooked in a thick, reddish, coconut cream-based curry. The liquids collected in the tray during the steaming process are packed with the light sweet fruitiness of the banana chilies; these liquids are reserved and added to the broth, producing a bright and light-bodied dish.
In the context of Siamese samrub meal planning, this thick chuu chee of pork and shrimp with a reddish coconut-based, curry-like sauce is considered a side dish (ของจาน; khaawng jaan). It consists of small, equal-sized slices of pork meat and shrimp fried in coconut cream together with a phrik khing curry paste. With no other vegetables or herbs, the dish is seasoned using fish sauce and palm sugar to a salty and only slightly sweet profile. Finally, it is glazed with shrimp tomalley poured on top and left unstirred, then cooked covered with the lid on, until the tomalley is baked-cooked. When serving, garnish with hair-thin juliennes of kaffir lime leaves and hand-picked coriander leaves.
Slices of firm pork fat a […]
