2013 Cooking Club Week 4: Thai Green Curry

Curry Addict

My tried and trusted recipe for Thai Green Curry. It is 100% authentic how its made in Thailand.

It takes 15mins max to make the paste and its super simple, bung all the ingredients into a blender and blend for 5mins, no need even to chop anything!
Once the paste is made its a nice quick curry to make, 20 mins should do it.
Why make it from scratch? Well its a lot better end result than buying the paste. Commercial pastes are loaded with salt and citrus flavors, a pot of Moy ploy paste for example is 12% salt! this means i cant add barely any fish sauce and i cant add fresh citrus ingredients so my overall flavors are going to be more bland.

how does it compare to what im used to in restaurants here? It is less creamy and less sweet, as much less coconut milk is used. but it is much more healthy and has a better flavor profile overall as the subtle flavors shine through better.

Green curry paste
1tsp coriander seeds
1tsp cumin seeds
1tsp white peppercorns
1 stalk of fresh lemongrass
3cm of fresh galangal or ginger, chopped
10 small green chillis, chopped
2 long green chillies, chopped
4 cloves of chopped garlic
3 pink thai shallots or 2 regular shallots
3 coriander roots, chopped
1tsp of lime skin or finely chopped kaffir lime leaves
2tsp of shrimp paste
1tbs oil

Simply add all the ingredients to a blender and blend for about 5mins until you reach the required consistency.


Thai Green Curry
2tbs of oil
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
2tbs green curry paste
2 chicken breast fillets, thinly sliced in lengths
400ml coconut milk
400ml chicken stock
1 large fresh red chilli, chopped diagonally into thin ovals
2 types of suitable veg chopped into bite size pieces.
2-3tbs Thai fish sauce
1tbs palm sugar (normal sugar will do)
20 fresh sweet basil leaves.

Heat the oil in a wok or pan, add the garlic and green curry paste and fry for 30secs.
Add the sliced chicken and a couple of tablespoons of the coconut milk and fry for about 3 minutes.
Add the veg, keep the pan hydrated by adding small amounts of coconut milk and cook for 2 minutes.
Add the rest of the coconut milk and then the stock, bring to the boil and simmer for 5mins or until the veg is tender.
Add the palm sugar and the fish sauce 1tbs at a time to taste.
Stir in the basil leaves and serve.


recipe notes :- freeze the excess curry paste in an ice cube maker and cover with a bag and it will stay good for months. you can then make a green curry in 20 mins next time.
When i make a paste I usually triple the amounts so i make a load and freeze it.
It may look very white while your cooking it, dont worry it magically turns green at the end!
coriander roots what are they? the roots of a bunch of coriander herb. when you are buying coriander herb, try to buy with the roots on. chop off the roots and freeze them until you making your next paste. Note sometimes i have to make a paste without this ingredient and it doesnt make much difference.
I use home made stock, you can use cubes or whatever but then you need to be careful and use less fish sauce.
Make sure your fish sauce is still within its best before date, if its gone off its really rank!

Curry Addict

more pics

sjaakie

yum yum.. the pictures are kinda vague and wobbly. something must be up with your camera

eviltwin

I have a tin of coconut milk in the press the last 3 weeks, no idea what to do with it, going to make this over the weekend.

homemadecider

Curry Addict strikes again! Looking forward to making this one.

hattoncracker

I..... I think I love you!!!!

Curry Addict

sjaakie wrote: »

yum yum.. the pictures are kinda vague and wobbly. something must be up with your camera

thats to cover up all my mistakes

The Black Oil

You ain't called Curry Addict for nothing. :pac:

BaZmO*

Can't wait to try this

Mellor

Thai green curry is one of my go to recipes, very similar to your own except;
I skip the stock. I buy a lighter type of coconut milk, so its already less creamy.
And, I never bother to make my own paste. I'm sure its miles better, I'm just stuck in a rut with Moy ploy.

Curry Addict

Mellor wrote: »

Thai green curry is one of my go to recipes, very similar to your own except;
I skip the stock. I buy a lighter type of coconut milk, so its already less creamy.
And, I never bother to make my own paste. I'm sure its miles better, I'm just stuck in a rut with Moy ploy.

once you make your own paste there is no going back, you will be surprised how easy it is :pac:

BaZmO*

Gonna make this later but could only get dried sweet basil leaves. I assume these will be fine?

Curry Addict

BaZmO* wrote: »

Gonna make this later but could only get dried sweet basil leaves. I assume these will be fine?

yes sounds great, good luck with it

BaZmO*

Made this last night, and as usual (from a Curry Addict recipe) it was beautiful! Super spicy but not blow your head off hot. Everything was just so perfectly balanced and it reminded me of the food I tried when I was in Thailand many many moons ago.



I got the dried Sweet Basil because for some reason I thought it went into the paste so it would've been ok to use dried, but it goes into the final dish.
So I soaked a tblsp in a bit of water and then chopped it as fine as I could before adding it to the dish. Would've preferred fresh but I think it worked great.

Word of warning for anyone cooking this though, the shrimp paste absolutely stinks! I was getting worried when I was initially cooking the Paste but once it's cooked out it's beautiful.

I also got some a pretty cool version of Palm Sugar to the one I got the last time (shown in the OP's pictures). It comes in little cubes in mini plastic trays like ice cube trays. Each cube is about a tablespoon so they're dead handy to use.

Anyway, enough waffle, fantastic dish. Can't wait to have it again on Monday! Thanks OP!

Curry Addict

looks even better than mine Bazmo, makes me want to have to now for dinner

sjaakie

looks great Bazmo, what kind of rice did you use? (it looks a bit sticky , I reckon it is jasmine? )

oscarBravo

I made this last night, it was delicious! I have two portions in the freezer and a bunch of the curry paste frozen in ice cube trays.

BaZmO*

sjaakie wrote: »

looks great Bazmo, what kind of rice did you use? (it looks a bit sticky , I reckon it is jasmine? )

I just used Tesco Thai Long Grain Rice, couldn't get Thai Sticky Rice.

Malari

Any substitute for shrimp paste? I'm having trouble finding any in the local supermarkets...

Faith

Malari wrote: »

Any substitute for shrimp paste? I'm having trouble finding any in the local supermarkets...

You'll definitely get it in Mr. Bells in the English Market if that's any good to you.

Malari

Faith wrote: »

You'll definitely get it in Mr. Bells in the English Market if that's any good to you.

Thanks. I'm not sure if I'll be in there before I want to cook this, so was wondering if there was a substitute, but it might have to wait!

Curry Addict

shrimp paste is a very unique ingredient type, its hard to imagine anything that could replace it.

emaleth

Four resounding thumbs up from the emaleth household, we licked our plates. Great nuance of flavour and not too sweet. For reference, I got four generous tablespoons of paste out of the recipe above, so two are in the freezer for next week. Big kiss for Curry Addict

Curry Addict

emaleth wrote: »

Four resounding thumbs up from the emaleth household, we licked our plates. Great nuance of flavour and not too sweet. For reference, I got four generous tablespoons of paste out of the recipe above, so two are in the freezer for next week. Big kiss for Curry Addict

glad you enjoyed! i normally triple the paste recipe to make loads at once so I dont have to make it very often.

hdowney

For those of us who don't live near the above shop? A source for the shrimp paste?

homemadecider

They have it in Fallon & Byrne in Dublin.

Malari

Just made this after I got me shrimp paste in the market! I think I may have used the wrong chillies...I got just regular green ones instead of two sizes :-/ I guess the smaller ones are hotter because the curry was very mild. Tasty though, but the flavours were really subtle. I think I'll add more paste and another chopped chilli the next time I make it.

Curry Addict

Malari wrote: »

Just made this after I got me shrimp paste in the market! I think I may have used the wrong chillies...I got just regular green ones instead of two sizes :-/ I guess the smaller ones are hotter because the curry was very mild. Tasty though, but the flavours were really subtle. I think I'll add more paste and another chopped chilli the next time I make it.

yes smaller chillies have more fire. more paste next time should give it more umfh!

hdowney

homemadecider wrote: »

They have it in Fallon & Byrne in Dublin.

No use to me. I live in wicklow. I also don't even know where Fallon & Byrne is!

Faith

hdowney wrote: »

No use to me. I live in wicklow. I also don't even know where Fallon & Byrne is!

It usually helps to give your location in the first place!

homemadecider

hdowney wrote: »

No use to me. I live in wicklow. I also don't even know where Fallon & Byrne is!

Order it online. Google is your friend!