Name: Pad Sator (ผัดสะตอ) — Southern Stir-Fried Stink Beans with Shrimp Paste
Prep time: 15 min
Cook time: 5 min
Total time: 20 min
Yield: 3 servings
Cuisine: Thai
Ingredients: 80 g sataw beans, shelled (สะตอแกะแล้ว); 3 shrimp, peeled, tails on (กุ้งแชบ๊วย); 80 g minced pork (หมูสับ); 3/4 tbsp shrimp paste (กะปิ); 10 bird's eye chillies (พริกขี้หนูสวน); 2 cloves garlic (กระเทียม); 3 shallots (หอมแดง); 1 tbsp sugar (น้ำตาลทราย); 2 tsp fish sauce (น้ำปลา); 2 tsp oyster sauce (น้ำมันหอย); 1/2 lime (มะนาว); 1 tbsp vegetable oil (น้ำมันพืช); 2 ladles pork stock (น้ำซุปหมู)

The Stink Bean The South Can't Quit

ผัดสะตอ is built on sataw — the stink bean, the southern vegetable that divides every table before a single bite is taken. Wongnai's home version is the classic shape of the dish: a paste of chillies, garlic, shallots and good shrimp paste fried until the whole kitchen knows, then minced pork, prawns, a quick toss of beans, and lime squeezed in over the heat of the pan.

The technique has two details worth keeping. The paste is pounded with a little sugar — the sugar helps the chillies break down under the pestle — and the beans go in last, fried only until just cooked, still with their crunch. Wongnai's author, a born southerner, is precise about the bean itself: satao kao, the pale, milder kind, over satao dan, the dark and aggressive one.

Then there is the other school of the dish. Pim's kitchen fries a seasoned nam phrik kapi — lime, fish sauce and palm sugar already worked into the paste — instead of a raw kapi paste. And the versions scale: Mahidol's institute kitchen counts thirty chillies for four people, while SiamKapi's guide is about fire control — medium-high heat, paste fried until fragrant but never burnt, beans never overcooked.

The Recipe (home version, from Wongnai)

Thai	English	Amount
สะตอข้าวแกะแล้ว	Sataw beans, shelled (satao kao)	80 g
กุ้งแชบ๊วย แกะเปลือกไว้หางผ่าหลัง	Shrimp, peeled, tails on, deveined	3
หมูสับ	Minced pork	80 g
กะปิเคยอย่างดี	Shrimp paste	¾ tbsp
พริกขี้หนูสวน	Bird's eye chillies	10
กระเทียม	Garlic	2 cloves (small)
หอมแดง	Shallots	3
น้ำตาลทราย	Sugar	1 tbsp
น้ำปลา	Fish sauce	2 tsp
น้ำมันหอย	Oyster sauce	2 tsp
มะนาว	Lime	½
น้ำมันพืช	Vegetable oil	1 tbsp
น้ำซุปหมู	Pork stock	2 ladles

The institute batch (Mahidol, for 4): 1 tbsp shrimp paste, 30 chillies, 4 garlic cloves, ½ tsp salt pounded coarse; 20 beans, 10 shrimp, 58 g pork loin, 5 shallots, 4 tbsp oil, 2 tbsp sugar, 2 tbsp lime juice, 3 tbsp oyster sauce. The nam phrik kapi version (Pim): ½ cup seasoned nam phrik kapi, 100 g sataw, 100 g minced pork, 8–10 shrimp, 1–2 tbsp each palm sugar, fish sauce and lime, ¼ cup water if the pan dries. The shrimp-only fry (Foodland): 200 g shrimp, 100 g sataw, 2 tbsp kapi, 5–10 chillies, 3–4 garlic, 2 shallots, 1 tsp sugar, 2 tbsp fish sauce — beans water-soaked first. The fire-control guide (SiamKapi): 1 cup sataw, 200 g shrimp, 1½ tbsp oyster sauce, 1 tbsp lime juice, 1 tsp sugar — hard beans blanched 20–30 seconds.

The Method

The paste. Pound most of the chillies with the garlic, shallots and a little sugar until broken down, then add the shrimp paste and pound smooth.
The bloom. Heat the oil over medium heat and fry the paste until the kitchen fills with it.
The meat. Minced pork in, fried nearly cooked; then the shrimp.
The season. Fish sauce, oyster sauce and sugar; then the pork stock, brought to the boil.
The beans. The remaining chillies and the sataw go in last — a quick stir-fry only, the beans still crunchy.
The lime. Off the heat, squeeze the lime over the pan and serve with hot rice.

Where Thai Sources Disagree

Raw paste or ready nam phrik kapi. Wongnai, Mahidol, Foodland and SiamKapi fry a raw kapi-chilli paste; Pim seasons the nam phrik kapi first — lime, fish sauce and palm sugar worked in — and fries that. The raw paste lets the shrimp paste bloom in the wok; the seasoned paste carries the whole flavour profile in from the start.

The oyster sauce. Mahidol stirs in a full 3 tablespoons, SiamKapi 1½, Wongnai 2 teaspoons — and Wongnai's author says to skip it entirely for the real southern taste. Foodland and Pim don't use it at all. It is the mainland sweetener creeping into a southern dish.

The lime. 2 tablespoons (Mahidol, and Pim's range), 1 tablespoon (SiamKapi), half a fruit (Wongnai), none (Foodland). But every source that uses it agrees on the moment: last, off the heat, so the sourness lands fresh.

The heat. Thirty chillies for four people (Mahidol), forty bird's eye plus six large red in Pim's nam phrik, ten (Wongnai), eight to twelve (SiamKapi), five to ten (Foodland). Southern heat is the point; the milder counts are the versions written for outsiders.

Taming the beans. Foodland soaks the sataw in water first to cut the bitterness; SiamKapi blanches only hard, old beans for 20–30 seconds; the rest trust the quick fry alone. Same goal — beans that are cooked but still crunch.

The sweetness. Mahidol takes 2 tablespoons of sugar, Wongnai 1, Foodland and SiamKapi a single teaspoon — SiamKapi's rule is that sweetness is only a hint, there to hold up the salt and heat, never to lead.

How Western Versions Get It Wrong

Swapping the beans. Edamame, broad beans or green peas stand in for sataw and the dish quietly dies. The stink bean is the dish; everything else in the pan is seasoning for it.
Boiling the beans to kill the smell. Par-boiling or long-frying destroys the crunch and dulls the fragrance — the very things the dish is for. A quick toss at the end is the whole technique.
Shy on the shrimp paste. A teaspoon diluted into the pan is invisible. The kapi is the first smell of the dish and the thing that ties the chilli, pork and shrimp together.
Lime at the start. In the pan from the beginning, the sourness cooks away. Every Thai source that uses lime adds it last, off the heat.
Sweetening it into stir-fry sauce territory. This is not pad thai. Thai sources warn both ways: sweetness should be a hint (SiamKapi), and a dish that runs too sweet and too salty is the health warning Mahidol attaches to it.
Adding coconut milk. No Thai source creams this dish. It is a dry, fast wok fry — the sauce that clings to the rice comes from the paste and the lime, not a can.

UK Ingredient Notes

Sataw beans: frozen at Thai grocers — the standard UK route. Defrost and drain; hard, old beans get the 20–30 second blanch from SiamKapi.
Shrimp paste (kapi): buy the Thai one from a Thai grocer, and buy a good one — Wongnai specifies good-quality kapi as the base of the paste.
Bird's eye chillies, shallots, garlic, palm sugar: standard supermarket and Asian-grocer territory.
Prawns: raw shell-on supermarket prawns work; peel, devein and pat dry — wet prawns steam the paste instead of letting it bloom.

Sources

This recipe is translated from the following Thai-language sources. Where they disagree, we've said so.

1. Wongnai — "วิธีทำ! สะตอผัดกะปิกุ้งสด เมนูอาหารใต้ ทำง่าย ๆ แถมหรอยอย่างแรงนิ!" by ปูนแดง (the recipe used here) — wongnai.com

2. Mahidol University Institute of Nutrition — "ผัดสะตอกับกะปิใส่กุ้ง" (the 4-person institute batch) — inmu.mahidol.ac.th

3. ครัวบ้านพิม — "สะตอผัดน้ำพริกกะปิสามรส" (the seasoned nam phrik kapi version) — pim.in.th

4. SiamKapi — "สะตอผัดกะปิกุ้งให้อร่อยแบบครัวใต้: สูตรทำจริงและทริกคุมไฟ" (the fire-control guide) — siamkapi.com

5. Foodland — "สูตรอาหาร: ผัดสะตอกะปิกุ้งสด" (the shrimp-only fry with the water-soak) — foodland.co.th

Johnny Tiger

Johnny researches and translates Thai recipes from Thai-language sources — chefs, restaurants and home cooks in Thailand — and publishes them with their sources cited. No westernised shortcuts, no invented steps.