Nam prik pao
Also known as nam-prik-pao, namphrik phao, namprik phao, Thai roasted chilli paste, Thai roasted chili paste
Paste
Quick answer
A thick, dark Thai paste of dried chillies, shallots and garlic that are roasted or fried, pounded, and then fried again in oil with fish sauce, sugar and tamarind. It is eaten with rice and used to cook with, and it is salty, sweet and sour as well as hot.
In essentially every version: Dried chillies, Shallots, Garlic, Tamarind pulp or tamarind water, Sugar, Salt, Fish sauce.
What goes into it
What essentially every version is made from, with what each ingredient is there to do.
| Ingredient | Role | How essential |
|---|---|---|
| Chilli flakesWhole dried chillies, roasted or fried before they are pounded; SpiceHQ records the chilli generically. One study made the paste with five kinds and its tasting panel scored the pastes of prik jinda and prik chifa highest. | heat | defining |
| Onion (fresh)The standard quoted names onion bulbs; both preparations read used shallots, and by weight more shallot than chilli. | savoury depth | defining |
| Garlic (fresh) | savoury depth | defining |
| TamarindNamed among the seasonings in the standard quoted, and used in both preparations read. | sour | usual |
| SugarOne study used palm sugar. A study that set out to cut the sugar replaced it with stevia extract. | sweet | usual |
| SaltThe standard quoted names salt and fish sauce together among the seasonings. | salt | usual |
| Fish sauceNamed with salt, sugar and tamarind among the seasonings in the standard quoted. | salt | usual |
| Shrimp pasteOne study offers fried shrimp paste as an alternative to the salt; another lists it in its finished product. The definition quoted does not name it. | savoury depth | optional |
| PrawnsThe standard quoted allows meat or other additions, and gives dried shrimp, dried fish and dried mushroom as examples. | savoury depth | optional |
Wide, within a fixed frame. The frame is the definition both papers quote from the Thai community product standard: dried chillies, onions and garlic that have been roasted over a flame, baked, dry-roasted or fried; ground together; seasoned with such things as fish sauce, salt, sugar and tamarind; optionally mixed with dried shrimp, dried fish or dried mushroom; and then simmered or fried with oil. Inside that, one paper says, the amounts differ with each person’s own formula. The kind of chilli is one variable, and how the three main ingredients are first cooked is another. Studies that add something to it, mung bean hulls in one and banana in another, start from an ordinary paste chosen as the base.
The versions
Each attributed to whoever describes it. The sources say what goes in and how it is made and give no amounts, so none are shown.
No attributed version has been written up yet.
Using it
Eaten as it is, with steamed rice or rice crackers, or used in cooking. It is a cooked, ready-to-eat product: the chilli, shallot and garlic are cooked once on their own and the pounded mixture is cooked again in oil with the seasonings. In one laboratory preparation the three were fried in soybean oil at 170 °C, pounded, and then stir-fried in more oil with palm sugar, salt or fried shrimp paste, fish sauce and tamarind water for ten to twenty minutes.
Its makers season it for salt, sweetness and sourness as well as heat: fish sauce and salt, sugar, and tamarind. The first cooking and the second frying darken it. In one study the pastes were far darker than curry pastes made from the same five chillies without frying, with lightness values of about 11 to 34 against 50 to 65, which the authors put down to the frying.
From mild to hot, by the chilli used. One study made it with five chillies, from the sweet peppers it calls prik hwan to prik khinu.
- Steamed rice
- Rice crackers
- As an ingredient in cooked dishes
The paper read says it is used in cooking without naming a dish. Its use in tom yum soup and in stir-fries is kitchen practice, not taken from a source read.
What to use it on
Rice
ClassicA Thai food-science paper describes the paste as eaten with steamed rice or rice crackers as well as cooked with. It is salty, sweet, sour and hot at once, which is what plain rice wants beside it.
Prawns
ClassicTom yum with prawns is commonly finished with a spoonful of the paste, which colours the broth and adds sweetness and depth under the lime and chilli. The paste often contains dried shrimp itself.
How: Tom yum goong
Recorded from kitchen practice. The papers read for the paste say it is cooked with and name no dish.
Allergens and safety
- Fish — a declarable allergen in the US
- Crustaceans (crustacean shellfish) — a declarable allergen in the EU and US
Fish must be declared in the United States and is not listed in EU Annex II; Crustaceans (crustacean shellfish) must be declared in both the EU and the United States. This is a statement about labelling law rather than about whether allergy occurs — allergic reactions to spices are documented and are not a labelling category — and it is the part of the answer that differs by where the food is sold.
Culture and origin
Thailand. A Thai food-science paper describes it as very popular in every region of the country. None of the sources read says where or when it began.
Thailand
A paste made to personal formulas, for which Thailand has a community product standard, numbered 4/2556. University food scientists use it as a vehicle for local ingredients: the studies read add mung bean hulls left over from processing, and banana with stevia in place of sugar.