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1
Place a wok or wide saucepan over medium-high heat, add the coconut cream, and bring it to a vigorous simmer, stirring regularly, until it splits — the cream separates into clear oil and white solids and the surface appears greasy and curdled. This matters because only split coconut cream will fry the curry paste properly; unbroken cream steams the paste rather than toasting it, and the finished curry will taste raw and flat.
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2
Add the red curry paste to the split coconut cream and fry, pressing and folding the paste continuously into the oily cream, until the paste is deeply fragrant and the oil runs an even brick-red — you are cooking out the raw edge of the shrimp paste and dried spices, which would otherwise sit harsh and unresolved in the finished dish. The sauce must be concentrated and fully aromatic at this stage; if it is not, the duck fat absorbed in the next step will dilute rather than enrich.
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3
Add the bruised lemongrass, coconut milk, fish sauce, and palm sugar, stir to combine, then add the duck pieces. This is where the dish lives or dies: hold the heat to a steady simmer of 8–10 minutes, not a rolling boil, so the rendered fat from the pre-roasted duck bleeds slowly into the sauce and the aromatics have time to bind with it — a rapid boil drives off that fragrant fat before it integrates, leaving the sauce thin and one-dimensional. The sauce will visibly deepen in colour and take on a glossy, fat-enriched sheen as it reaches the right point.
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4
Add the makrut lime leaves, tearing them lightly so their fragrance releases into the simmering sauce rather than sitting inert on the surface. Continue to simmer until the duck is heated through to the bone and the sauce coats a spoon with a distinct, unctuous body — the spice notes of the five-spice roasting should be detectable beneath the coconut and chilli.
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5
Add the lychees, cherry tomatoes, and pineapple and simmer for no more than 3–4 minutes, so the fruit warms through and barely softens — the tomatoes yielding at the skin but still holding their shape — because fruit kept beyond this point dissolves and its sugars turn bitter, muddying the clean sweetness the dish depends on. Pull the wok from the heat the moment the tomato skins just begin to wrinkle.
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6
Taste and adjust: the duck and its existing marinade carry significant salt, so add fish sauce only if the balance requires it. The finished curry should read rich, spiced, and faintly sweet, with a clean acid finish from the fruit; scatter sliced red chillies and Thai sweet basil leaves over the surface and serve immediately.