Nam Prik Num (น้ำพริกหนุ่ม) — Northern Thai Charred Green Chilli Relish

// SUPPLY LIST

// OPERATIONS

1. 1 Start the sticky rice before anything else: rinse it in several changes of cold water until the water runs almost clear, then leave it to soak in plenty of cold water for at least 4 hours, or overnight. This is the step that decides what time you eat and it cannot be hurried — under-soaked grains steam up chalky and hard in the middle, and no amount of extra time in the basket will soften them afterwards.
2. 2 Light about 1 kg of lump charcoal in a chimney starter and give it 15-20 minutes, until the coals at the top are coated in grey ash, then tip them into a kettle or open grill in a single layer and let them settle for 5 minutes. You are aiming for roughly 200-230°C / 390-450°F at grate height, hot enough that you can hold your palm 12 cm above the bars for only 3-4 seconds. Chiang Mai cooks with no fire lit simply lay the vegetables straight on the trivet of a gas ring or char them in a dry cast-iron pan over high heat, and nobody in the north calls that cheating; an overhead broiler on maximum is the last acceptable fallback. What does ruin the dish is roasting in a moderate oven, which stews the chillies sweet and soft without ever blistering the skin or catching any smoke.
3. 3 Set the unpeeled shallots on the grate over the hottest part of the fire and char for 12-15 minutes, turning with tongs every 3 minutes, until the papery skins are blackened in patches, the flesh collapses under gentle pressure and they smell sweet rather than sharp — a shallot still firm at the core tastes raw and aggressive in the finished paste and no amount of pounding hides it, so give them the full time even when the outsides look done after five minutes. The garlic needs far less and must go somewhere it cannot fall through the bars: put the separated cloves in a small perforated basket, a folded foil tray or a dry cast-iron pan set on a cooler edge of the grate, and char for only 6-8 minutes, until the skins are spotted brown-black and the cloves yield softly when pressed. Pull the garlic the moment it is soft — cloves given the full shallot time over direct heat carbonise inside their skins and turn the whole bowl bitter in a way salt and lime cannot cover.
4. 4 Lay the whole chillies (and the bird's eyes, if using) on the grate over the hottest part of the fire and char for 8-10 minutes, turning every 2 minutes, until the skin is blistered, loose and blackened over at least half of each chilli and the flesh has gone limp. Two failures live in this step: lifting them off while the skin is still tight and squeaky, which gives a grassy relish and skins that refuse to peel, and letting them burn through to grey ash, which turns the whole bowl acrid. You are after black patches on a collapsed chilli, not a cinder.
5. 5 Pile everything into a bowl while still hot, cover tightly with a plate or a lid and leave for 15 minutes; the trapped steam lifts the skins away from the flesh and turns peeling into a one-minute job instead of a ten-minute fight.
6. 6 Peel the chillies with your fingers, scraping stubborn patches with the back of a small knife, then pull off the stems; squeeze the shallots and garlic out of their skins. Tip the smoky juices that have collected in the bottom of the bowl into a small cup and reserve them for the seasoning at the end — do not add them yet. Never rinse any of it under the tap: water carries the smoke straight down the drain and is the single most common way home cooks flatten this dish. Leave a scattering of black flecks behind on purpose, and keep the seeds, which is both traditional and where most of the heat sits; scrape them out only for someone who genuinely cannot take chilli, accepting a milder, sweeter result.
7. 7 In a granite mortar of at least 1.5 litres / 6 cups, pound the charred garlic and shallots with the 1 tsp coarse salt for 1-2 minutes, until they break down into a slack pale paste with no lumps left. The coarse grains are doing real work here as an abrasive; fine salt dissolves on contact and leaves you grinding wet shallot against smooth stone.
8. 8 Add the chillies a few at a time and pound with short strokes, turning the mash over with the pestle between additions, for 3-5 minutes in total, until you have a coarse, shreddy, olive-drab paste in which you can still see strands of chilli skin. Do not reach for a blender: it whips the chillies into a smooth wet purée that tastes green and looks unnaturally bright, and that texture is most of what makes this nam prik num. If you have no mortar, chop everything fine on a board with a heavy knife, which northern cooks do all the time, but a machine is not a substitute.
9. 9 Stir in the lime juice, the reserved charring juices and the fish sauce if you are not keeping it vegetarian, then taste and correct with salt a 1/4 teaspoon at a time. Build up rather than guess — the fish sauce is already carrying salt of its own, and there is no way back once the paste is over-seasoned. Judge it against a pinch of plain sticky rice rather than off the spoon alone: on its own it should read one notch too salty and too sharp, because it is eaten in small dabs with bland rice and plain vegetables.
10. 10 Fold in the chopped coriander and sliced culantro with a spoon rather than the pestle — pounded herbs bruise, blacken and turn the whole paste bitter within the hour.
11. 11 Let the relish sit, loosely covered, at room temperature for 20-30 minutes so the raw edge of the garlic settles back into the smoke, and use that window to steam the rice: drain the soaked grains and steam them in a bamboo basket or a muslin-lined steamer over boiling water for 25-30 minutes, until they are glossy, translucent and chewy right through with no chalky centre. The relish keeps 4-5 days covered in the fridge and is better on day two, but always bring it back to room temperature first, because cold mutes both the chilli and the smoke almost completely; if you are making it to keep, hold the herbs back and fold them in fresh each time you serve, since chopped coriander darkens and goes dull overnight.
12. 12 Serve at room temperature in a small bowl with a basket of hot sticky rice, a platter of raw and lightly steamed vegetables — cabbage wedges, yard-long beans, cucumber, Thai eggplant, winged beans, steamed pumpkin — and, unless you are keeping the meal vegetarian, a bowl of khaep mu. Eat it the northern way: pinch off a walnut of sticky rice, press it flat against your fingers and use it to scoop a small dab, so the relish seasons the rice rather than overwhelming it.

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