thai green curry

I know what you’re thinking, I know what you’re thinking: “doesn’t look very green, does it?”. We’ll get to that in a bit…

Anywho, as evidenced by the side bar of this blog, I am a big fan of Thai food and have had the fortune to travel there twice in my life.

The first time was part of my post-university round-the-world travels and the second was for my brother’s wedding just over a year ago. Both times I was bowled over by the amazingly diverse and flavourful food, as well as the incredible people, crazy history and of course, the beauty of the place.

After my brother’s wedding, we got to do some travelling and whilst in Pai, a village in hilly northern Thailand, I took a Thai cookery class in this guy’s house. I’ll have to do a dedicated post at some point to show you all what it was like…but this post is not about that.

It is, however, about finding the homemade cookbook our lovely teacher, gave me before I left, with all his hand-typed recipes. What a piece of gold!

Yet, I’ve never got around to making a single one. Well, I took the plunge and finally bought a mortar and pestle so that I can make my own curry paste…and now there’s nothing stopping me!

Obviously, you totally do not have to make your own paste- I just really wanted to recreate the full experience of cooking the dish from scratch.

Now, as to the lack of green in my “green” curry, there are a couple of reasons why it turned out that way. Firstly, I could not find dried green chillies anywhere, even the Asian grocery store, which was of course my first port of call…so red it was. Secondly, if I’d have added more basil leaves to the paste, I think the green would have zinged a little more too.

Some other notes I’d make since this was my first time making a Thai curry from scratch and it was not perfect: next time I would be more liberal with the chillies (frankly, I was terrified of blowing my face off the way I did in Thailand…), I’d also use more basil leaves, and less oil.

Still, it was damn tasty and got a big thumbs up from the bloke sitting next to me ;)

Thai Green Curry

Ingredients

Green Curry Paste
(technically, this is red curry paste with sweet basil leaves added)

• 1 – 3 big and small dried green chillies (red work too), soaked in hot water for 10 mins. After soaking, remove seeds and chop.
• 1 tbsp lemongrass, chopped (if your normal grocery store doesn’t have this, check out your local Asian grocery store)
• 1 tbsp galangal, chopped (in the ginger family. Again, check out an Asian grocery store)
• 1 tsp garlic, crushed
• 1 tsp shallot, chopped
• 1/2 tsp kaffir lime skin (optional)
• 1/2 tsp coriander root (or 1 tsp coriander stem)

• 1/2 tsp coriander seeds
• 1/2 tsp white or black peppercorns
• 1/4 tsp cumin seeds
• 1/4 tsp salt

Directions

1. Take a wok, or large pan and dry fry (no oil or water) the coriander seeds, peppercorns and cumin seeds until you can smell their aroma, hear popping and see smoke.
2. Remove from the heat and place in a bowl.
3. Take a mortar and pestle or blender and grind the seeds from the bowl until they look like powder.
4. Add the salt and then all the other ingredients.
5. Grind ingredients until they form a paste.

Green Curry
Ingredients

• 2 oz eggplant, chopped into bite-size pieces and put in a bowl with salted water to prevent browning
• 1 or 2 baby sweetcorns, cut into bite-size pieces
• 1 kaffir lime leaf, rolled and cut into small strips
• 20 leaves of sweet basil
• 3-4 oz chicken breast, cut into bite-size pieces
• 3/4 cup coconut milk

For the sauce:

le=”font-style: italic;”>Ingredients

• 1 tbsp brown sugar
• 3 tbsp fish sauce (again, check out your local Asian grocery store for this)

Directions

1. Heat 2-3 tbsp oil in a pot over high heat.
2. Add 2 tbsp curry paste and let cook for a couple of minutes or until fragrant.
3. Add chicken and add a dash of coconut milk if it starts to burn.
4. Add your hard vegetables (eggplant, baby corn) and let cook for 30 seconds.
5. Put the coconut milk in the pot and stir.
6. Once the coconut milk comes to a boil add the sauce.
7. Put any soft vegetables in (our teacher suggested boiled pumpkin but it didn’t appeal to me!)
8. Check the taste…
9. Turn off the heat and add the sweet basil leaves.
10. Serve with white rice.

I know that the long list of ingredients/directions looks kind of daunting and I won’t lie that this is not the quickest dish in the world but it’s not the longest or hardest either! Once you’ve made your trip to the store (fun) and have all your ingredients prepped, you’re good to go.

Next up for me? Massaman curry, Stir Fried Holy Basil and Pad Thai – stay tuned!

What Thai dishes do you like? Have you ever tried making them at home?