Smoked Mackerel Thai Jungle Curry

This delicious Thai jungle curry is one to try if you love a spicy fish curry! Traditionally, Thai jungle curry is cooked with meat and not fish, this is because there are not many rivers or lakes in the North of Thailand to find fish to cook with. However, today I’m sharing a great fish curry recipe, cooking with smoked mackerel and mixed vegetables.

Smoked mackerel is delicious, nutritious and is a fairly inexpensive type of fish. It even comes ready to eat, so there’s no added cooking required - just warming up in the wok whilst the vegetables are cooking. You could probably guess by it’s name, the mackerel fillets have been cooked by smoke and it just adds an extra burst of flavour which really compliments the fiery and peppery flavour of the Jungle curry.

How to Make Smoked Mackerel Thai Jungle Curry

First of all is to prepare the many vegetables in the recipe. I’ve chosen to cook with green beans, baby corn, bamboo shoots, carrots and mixed chillies. I would usually cook with either Thai pea aubergines or young peppercorns but I couldn’t find any at this time of this updated recipe. If you do find pea aubergines and young peppercorn then please use them for this recipe!

I prepared the green beans by trimming off the ends and chopping into thirds. I peeled the carrots using a julienne peeler to give a nice decorated edge and then chop into circular pieces. The baby corn and mixed chillies are sliced into thinner pieces. Now onto the cooking, heat oil a wok or saucepan on medium/high heat and stir fry Mae Jum Thai Jungle curry paste for 2 minutes until the amoras fill the kitchen, beware you may cough a little!

Next is to add water and gently blend out the curry paste with the water and then add in the fish sauce. Now add all of the vegetables except for the mixed chillies and bring to a light boil and simmer for about 5 minutes before adding the mackerel. I have prepared the smoked mackerel by gently peeling off the skin and breaking up the fillet into large pieces with my hands.

This curry is almost finished, now taste to season the dish further by adding in half a teaspoon of palm sugar. Jungle curry shouldn’t be sweet, but it does need a little for the perfect balance of salty, spicy and sweet. To finish off, tear the kaffir lime leaves into smaller pieces and add it to the sauce, by tearing the leaves it helps release those incredible citrus and floral flavour. And that’s it! So quick to make and even quicker to eat! Enjoy!

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