Bite Me!

I spent a happy couple of hours on Sunday with my friend Sana making this Thai green curry paste; first we wandered down to Brick Lane to buy the ingredients, then got busy chopping and deseeding and grinding.  We used this recipe from Waitrose, to which we made a couple of alterations;  firstly, we didn't use olive oil - it has quite a strong flavour of its own that is totally wrong for Thai cooking.  Instead, use a flavourless oil such as rapeseed or groundnut.  Secondly, instead of normal basil, use Thai basil (if you can get hold of any).  Normal basil is fine if you can't get anything else but the flavour will not be as authentic as the two basils do taste very different from each other.   

You can make this paste with a pestle and mortar, but it will take you a LONG time and quite a lot of upper arm strength is required.  We started off this way before remembering that we had a mini food processor, which probably cut the preparation time down by about an hour.  If you do grind it by hand, you will probably end up with a better, smoother texture, but using a food processor or blender is fine.

To use the curry paste, simply bung in a saucepan with whatever veg you want to put in your curry (baby corn, peppers, aubergines, water chestnuts and cabbage are all good), plus a tin of coconut milk.  Then simply simmer until the vegetables are cooked.  The amount of paste you will need to use depends on how strong you would like the curry - for a really strong flavour, you'll probably want to use about six tablespoons of paste in a curry big enough for four people. Add a squeeze of lime and a scattering of fresh coriander at the end of the cooking time, and serve with a sticky Thai jasmine rice.

This Thai red curry is a favourite of mine - it's really quick and easy to make and tastes great.  I use shop-bought red curry paste which some would probably consider cheating, but as long as you get a decent paste I think that the end result is still pretty good.  I buy my paste from the Chinese shop in Brixton but Thai Taste is available from Waitrose and is excellent.  I would stay away from Marks & Spencers' red curry paste - I tried it recently and found it to be very vinegary, with a lot of chilli but not much flavour apart from that.

Ingredients

tbsp groundnut or other flavourless oil

two birds-eye red chillis, chopped fine

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