I am fortunate to have travelled a lot in Asia, but Thailand was my favourite food location. Thai food is light, fresh and has an abundance of flavour, it can be mild, or extremely hot! The problem I have, is because I've been spoilt with eating authentic Asian cuisine, the supermarket alternatives are a massive let down... So hence why I decided to create my own recipe for my favourite Thai dish, Green Thai Curry.
There are some ingredients in this recipe that may be hard to get hold of in the shops but they are all available on www.theasiancookshop.co.uk
I would really recommend investing in some of these products, as there are few alternatives and because they make a significant difference to the flavour of the dish.
This curry is a medium heat, but you can add less or more chilli as desired, but I do like it hot! The paste itself, freezes really well, so you can batch make - the heat does intensify if it's frozen, so maybe tone the chilli down when you're freezing! The curry once made, also freezes well, providing you use chicken as opposed to prawn.
Ingredients
Green Thai Curry Paste (makes enough paste for 1 curry, serving 4 people)
- 5 lemongrass stalks, core chopped (discard the darker, outer leaves and chop the pale bit in the middle)
- 1 medium green chilli, chopped (leave the seeds in)
- 1 inch piece of ginger, peeled and chopped
- 6 garlic cloves, peeled and chopped
- 3 shallots (I use banana shallots)
- 3 kaffir lime leaves, (dried are fine), chopped
- 1 tsp ground black peppercorns
- 1 tsp shrimp paste (this is so important not to skip!)
- Pinch of salt
- 30ml cold water
Method
- Put all the ingredients into a food processor and blend until you have a smooth paste!
Green Thai Curry
- 1 tbsp coconut oil
- 400g diced, skinless and boneless chicken (I use thigh because it has more flavour, but breast is fine)
- 120ml coconut milk
- 1 tsp fish sauce
- 1 inch piece/1 tbsp palm sugar
- 1 tbsp jarred Thai basil leaves or 1 small handful of fresh
- 200g sugar snap peas
- Juice of half a lime
- Handful chopped spring onion.
- Sliced red chilli (seeds removed) - only if you like it hot!
Method
- Heat the coconut oil in a deep based frying pan (such as a khadai or heavy based wok) on a medium heat. Add the paste and fry for 5 minutes, stirring frequently.
- Add the chicken and fry for a further 5 minutes.
- Add the coconut milk, fish sauce, palm sugar and the jarred Thai basil leaves (if using fresh, these are used later on).
- Bring to a simmer and leave for 10 minutes, or until the sauce has reduced.
- Add the sugar snap peas and simmer for a further 5 minutes.
- Just before serving, add the the lime and basil (if using fresh) and stir.
- Plate up and garnish with the spring onion and chilli.
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| Green Thai Curry |
Hints, tips and tricks
- I would suggest that you serve this with Thai jasmine rice, it compliments it well, but basmati is also fine.
- If you would prefer to use prawns, add them with the sugar snap peas as they take less time to cook.
- Discount the shrimp paste and fish sauce if you want to make a veggie option/vegan option - it won't be as authentic but it'll still taste yummy!
- Green beans, mangetout and asparagus all go well as an alternative to sugar snap peas, or use all three in place of meat if you're making a veggie/vegan version.
- I've had a look online, all the ingredients above are stocked in Waitrose, they are more expensive than other supermarkets, but great if you want to shop for it all in one place. Shop around, if you want it to be cheaper.