Panang beef: the curry we slow-cook for four hours

10 July 2026 · 3 min read · Rim Thang Thai, Glenelg

Most Thai food is fast. A wok dish takes minutes, and even a curry comes together quickly once the paste is made. Panang beef is the exception on our menu — a curry that only works if you give it time. Ours goes on the stove four hours before it reaches your table.

Here's what panang actually is, and why we refuse to hurry it.

What is panang curry?

Panang — you'll also see it spelt phanaeng — is the thick, rich cousin of red curry. Where a green curry arrives soupy enough to flood your rice, panang is reduced and clingy: more sauce than broth, made on coconut cream rather than thin coconut milk. Many cooks trace the name to Penang, the island off Malaysia's west coast, though Thai kitchens long ago made the dish their own.

The flavour sits deeper and rounder than a standard red curry — less sharp heat, more warmth, with kaffir lime cutting through the richness. It's the curry for people who want depth rather than fire, though ours still carries proper spice. You'll know one on sight: the sauce sits thick on the meat instead of around it, glossy from the coconut cream.

Why four hours matters

Beef and coconut cream both reward patience. A long, low simmer breaks down the connective tissue in the beef until it gives way at the push of a fork, and everything the meat releases thickens the sauce as it cooks. You can't fake that with cornflour, and you can't rush it with higher heat. The clock is the recipe.

So ours starts early: beef simmered slowly for four hours with capsicum, kaffir lime and coconut cream, until the sauce turns glossy and the meat stops resisting. By the time we open at 5PM it's ready — which is the other reason a slow-cooked curry suits a dinner-only kitchen.

The coconut cream matters just as much as the clock. Over a long simmer it reduces and concentrates, and the spice from the paste settles into it rather than sitting on top. That's why a spoonful of panang tastes layered instead of loud — the heat arrives late and stays warm rather than burning.

One dish, one price

Most dishes on our curry menu let you choose a protein — tofu, chicken, seafood or the combination. Panang is the exception: it's beef, it's $22.50, and that's the whole decision. The slow cook is built around beef and nothing else, so we don't offer it any other way.

Order it with jasmine rice — $4 for a bowl, $7 for the big one — because the sauce is too good to leave behind. If you're settling in for the evening, something light from our starters works while it's plated: the vegetarian curry puffs at $9.90 keep the theme going.

If you're searching for panang curry in Adelaide, we're at 39 Jetty Rd, Glenelg — a family-run Thai street-food kitchen, dinner from 5PM seven nights. It's a proper cold-night order, and it makes a strong case as takeaway too: four hours of cooking doesn't fall apart on a ten-minute drive home.