Have your favourite Thai curry at home by making this delicious bowl of Red Duck Curry with Lychees, it’s spicy, rich and fragrant
Updated 2 August 2021
Make your favourite Thai dish at home
Are you ready for a flavour explosion? Because this bowl of Red Duck Curry with Lychees will delight every little inch of your tastebuds and satisfy your cravings for Thai curry. Cooking mouthwatering Thai curry at home is achievable with this easy step-by-step guide. Don’t worry though, there is no skimping on taste and flavour with this simple recipe.
If you’ve had duck curry in Thai restaurants, you’ll be familiar with this amazing rich curry. The beautifully balanced flavours of sweetness, spiciness and sourness are enough to make you want to dive right into the bowl and devour it all.
The curry sauce is so good that you can practically eat it alone with rice and be in food heaven!
But you won’t have to eat the curry alone because you have plenty of tasty duck, juicy sweet lychees and crunchy green beans. The best combination combined in a curry!
For us to keep this recipe nice and simple, we’ll take a few shortcuts, by using jarred red curry and precooked BBQ duck.
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Nina with no filters
I’ve only begun posting regularly for the last 3 months and within that time, I’ve already posted a few Thai inspired dishes. Like my husband, Tomasi, favourite THAI CHICKEN AND PUMPKIN STIR FRY and the mouthwatering CRISPY SKIN SALMON WITH MANGO SALSA
My love for all things Thai began when I met Nina during my second year of uni. Nina was an international student from Thailand. She was aiming to get a bachelor’s degree in business. I knew I loved her when told me I was ‘beautiful and sexy’ when we first spoke, but in saying that she wouldn’t waste a second to inform me I’ve gained weight later on. We knew her as ‘Nina with no filters’ and I adored her for it!
We still contact each other regularly. Every time I’ve visited Thailand, or she’s come back, we always make time to spend a few days together.
Nina and her family are really well off. They associate with Thai politicians and celebrities, but you could never tell if you meet them. They’re modest and genuine people, no ‘diva-like’ behaviour at all!
The first time I visited Thailand, she and her brother met up with me and my friends. They took us to this very fancy restaurant in Bangkok for dinner and ordered lobster, crabs, and all these other exquisite dishes for us. Unfortunately, at the time I had extremely sick from food poisoning. No one loves seafood more than me, but it was the last thing I wanted to eat that day. I still ate as much as I could to be polite, but had to sprint to the bathroom a few times afterwards. I made it just in time before vomiting my guts out. Ah, sweet travel memories!
My latest video – Kimchi and Pork dumpling soup
Cooking Thai curries at home
Nina and I also got along well because we both loved cooking. Whilst we were living on campus, we taught one another how to make all kinds of dishes. She showed me how to make many Thai dishes, but not always from scratch. Nina used pre-made curry paste and seasonings often. She told me she had no time to grind spices as she had to go to lectures and study.
I agree, we all have busy lives to live, so if we can take shortcuts and still end up with a super delicious dish, then why not! It’s not like we are competing in MasterChef and would get reprimanded for doing so!
This recipe is full of shortcuts. Yes, I know nothing tastes more authentic when it’s made from scratch but this usually involves ingredients that are hard to find. It’s also labour intensive to grind everything into a paste, so let’s go buy some excellent quality pre-made ingredients instead!
First, let’s get an excellent quality red curry paste. Nina always uses ‘Maesri’, a brand that’s made in Thailand. If you’re unable to get this brand, other red curry pastes will work. Lychees are difficult to find fresh here, as it’s a seasonal fruit, so to overcome that we’ll be using canned lychees.
And then there’s the BBQ or roasted duck. If you’re a Chinese duck lover like me, you would know that BBQ duck it’s very easy to eat but difficult and time-consuming to make. So why bother? That local Chinese chophouse works hard to dry, marinate, baste and cook the duck for us, so let’s just hand them over our cash!
Or roast your own duck the simple way:
Easy Classic Roast Duck
Easy Chinese Roast Duck
Ingredients for Red Duck Curry with Lychees
BBQ Duck – We purchased a whole BBQ duck from a Chinese BBQ chophouse. We ate half of it and used the leftover in this curry. You don’t have to buy a whole duck, most chophouses sell half a duck and they’ll chop in nicely for you.
Before adding the duck to the curry, pat the duck dry with paper towels. Excess liquid from the duck will make the curry too salty. To make it easier to eat, you may wish to debone the duck before adding it to the curry.
Lychees – Fresh or canned lychees will work. If using canned, drain all the syrup from the lychee before adding it to the curry. The syrup has a strong lychee flavour and is delicious, so instead of discarding it you can freeze the syrup and use it in drinks and desserts.
Coconut cream – If you want a rich and thick curry, use full-fat coconut cream, but if you want it thinner use coconut milk or light coconut cream. You could even use a combination of both.
Red curry paste – I used ‘Maesri’ red curry paste, it comes in a can and it’s of excellent quality. However, any good quality red curry paste would work too.
Fish sauce – I used ‘Squid’ fish sauce but any brand of fish sauce will work.
Palm sugar is a sweetener derived from the saps of palm trees and has a beautiful caramel flavour. It’s sold in supermarkets and Asian grocery shops. Brown sugar is a good substitute, use the same amount required.
Kaffir Lime leaves – These fragrant leaves are pretty and distinct. A single kaffir lime leaf looks like there are two leaves conjoined together at the ends.
How to make Thai Red Duck Curry
Step-by-step guide with photos
Heat a deep frying pan or wok over medium to high heat. Add in the curry paste, stir to cook quickly for a minute. Pour in half a cup of coconut cream into the pan, stirring fast to combine the cream with the paste. Bring the mixture to a simmer and let it cook for a minute. Pour the remaining coconut cream and bring it back to a simmer.
Place the kaffir lime leaves, chilli, palm sugar and fish sauce into the pan. Reduce the heat to medium-low, and leave the curry to simmer for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add in the duck, lychees, beans and capsicum to the curry and cook for a further 10 minutes. Have a taste of the curry, add a little salt if needed and adjust to taste. Give it a stir and remove the pan from the heat and stir in the lime juice. The curry will thicken once it’s off the heat.
Leftovers – Allow the curry to cool completely at room temperature. Transfer the curry into a sealed container and refrigerate, it’ll be good for up to 3 days.
I’ve used a third-party application to calculate the calories and nutritional information, so please use this as an approximate guide only.
Cooking measurements are in Australian standard spoon and cup measurements. For specific details and conversions, visit our Australian Cooking Measurements page.
I would love your feedback and support if you made this recipe. To do this, please rate this recipe and provide a comment by scrolling down this page or by clicking that green circle on the bottom left. An email address is required (for spam), but it won’t be published. I would also love to see your dish, so don’t forget to tag me on my Instagram account ‘3catsfoodie’
Cheers – Cat T
Red Duck Curry with Lychees
Ingredients
- ⅓ cup red curry paste (NOTE 1)
- 800 ml coconut cream (NOTE 2)
- 4 kaffir lime leaves (roughly torn) (NOTE 3)
- 2 tbsp fish sauce (NOTE 4)
- 1 tbsp palm sugar (grated or brown sugar) (NOTE 5)
- 2 small red chillies (sliced thinly) (Thai or Bird's eye)
- ½ red capsicum (sliced thinly)
- 150 gm green beans (sliced)
- 560 gm canned lychees (syrup drained) (NOTE 6)
- ½ BBQ duck (around 600gms) (NOTE 7)
- 1 small lime
- salt (to seasoning if needed)
Instructions
- Heat a deep frying pan or wok over medium to high heat. Add in the curry paste, stir to cook quickly for a minute. Pour in half a cup of coconut cream into the pan, stirring fast to combine the cream with the paste. Bring the mixture to a simmer and let it cook for a minute. Pour the remaining coconut cream and bring it back to a simmer.
- Place the kaffir lime leaves, chilli, palm sugar and fish sauce into the pan. Reduce the heat to medium-low, and leave the curry to simmer for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add in the duck, lychees, beans and capsicum to the curry and cook for a further 10 minutes. Have a taste of the curry, add a little salt if needed and adjust to taste. Give it a stir and remove the pan from the heat and stir in the lime juice. The curry will thicken once it's off the heat.
