Thank you to uncle Phumipat and his wife for their hospitality and the generosity of their time in educating and sharing their culture and their heritage. There is no expiration date for shrimp paste, but the best way to keep it is to store it in the fridge or freezer in an air-tight jar until it is gone. I simply wrote a note on mine as to its maturity date. They can identify it by its distinguishing smell at each stage. The locals know when the shrimp paste is ready. Because the demand for his shrimp paste is so high, he doesn’t get a chance to let his shrimp paste ferment and it is his customer who lets the shrimp paste ferment on the shelf in their kitchen until it is ready to incorporate into a savory Thai dish. They pack a half kilogram of the paste into a plastic bag, then roll it back and forth to get rid of air pockets, and form the dense shrimp paste into a cylindrical tube. This is where Lung Phumipat and his wife have simplified the process. Another umami-rich ingredient is Thai fish sauce – น้ำปลา – Nam Pla. The glutamate in fish paste is created by fermentation. It is often described as savoriness, or “a pleasant brothy or meaty taste with a long lasting, mouthwatering and coating sensation over the tongue.” ( (source)) The umami taste is created when the tongue detects components of the compound glutamate, which heightens flavors and creates a sensation of savoriness. Shrimp paste is rich in umami-often referred to as the fifth taste after sweet, sour, bitter and salty. The smell may make you pause and wonder why it is so significant to Thai cuisine. It looks like a muddy, purple-gray paste and has a smell like a powerful blue cheese. Please follow me as I share some firsthand knowledge with you.Īt Thai markets you will see big mounds of Kapi in the supermarket it is packed in plastic tubes. Perhaps I will write a blog post at a later time giving you an in-depth look at how shrimp paste is used in Thai cuisine, but for now I will focus on how it is made. A small amount of shrimp paste in the country soup Gaeng Leang makes a good base for a soup, just like dashidoes in Japanese soup. Most people can’t detect it, but like fish sauce in Thai soup, it makes a dish rich and robust. It is the hidden ingredient in most Thai curry pastes, as it is there only in small amounts. After my last blog post on Southern Thai Red Curry Paste, I realized that this would be an appropriate time to introduce you to an ingredient that is important to making an authentic Thai curry: shrimp paste.
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