Shrimp Paste Fried Rice with Caramel Pork

Another one for the journal: https://hot-thai-kitchen.com/shrimp-paste-fried-rice/

Smashing shrimp paste fried rice. Had a new bottle of shrimp paste that I opened up last week to use 1tsp for a different recipe (burmese shrimp curry)... was afraid it would go bad before I had another chance to eat it so decided to make a fried rice for lunch today!

Shrimp flavor was nice and savory, really nice with the rice. Put slightly more than recommended, a good move. Gave the rice a nice orange color. Perhaps it was the brand of shrimp paste I was using but it was nowhere near being salty enough. I added salt to the rice as I was frying it. 2 pinches... prob 1 tsp or so. 

Surprised myself how much the raw shallots worked with the rice!!! So good, we got seconds on that. 

1 egg was enough for 2 of us. 

Pickled thai chilis were nice. Subbed out some of the ingredients I didn't have handy but not an issue at all! Think at the end of the day the dish needs to be balanced across the sweet (pork), savory (rice/dried shrimp), fresh (cucumbers/shallots), acid (pickled chili) and spice (chili, shallots) elements. 

Added cilantro for garnish, because... why not. 

I went with the full recipe on the caramel pork and it was a tad sweet for our palate. Sugar could be reduced by 30%.

Quite an attractive dish overall and it only took 30 mins! Success!