Thai curry paste
Katy led on this recipe; she has travelled extensively throughout Thailand and cooked in many regions of the country including Chiang Mai where she learnt the principles of balancing a red Thai curry: spicy, salty, sour, and sweet. She’s a total aficionado on Thai cuisine and this paste is the real deal.
The recipe below makes a very generous amount of curry paste; it will fill 1 x 330ml/g jar. It’s far more than you will need for a curry for 4 people, but it will last for up to 2 weeks in your fridge, and indefinitely in your freezer (try freezing it in ice cubes trays and popping a few cubes out each time you fancy a homemade curry!). We used a food processor to whiz the paste together, but it can be made by hand in a large pestle and mortar too.
We’ve recently used this paste in a Red Thai Butternut Curry, but will be sharing more recipes very soon. Happy cooking!
Ingredients:
1 tbsp cumin seeds
1 tbsp coriander seeds
10 cloves garlic, peeled
4 stalks lemongrass
2 large handfuls fresh coriander stalks & leaves
20 Thai red chillies
20 Thai shallots (/10 normal shallots /4 banana shallots)
1 thumb turmeric, peeled with a teaspoon
4 thumbs ginger, peeled with a teaspoon
1 tsp Kaffir lime power (/5 dried leaves)
1 lime, zest only
1 tsp flakey sea salt
Method:
Start by dry-toasting the cumin and coriander seeds in a small frying pan over a medium heat. This helps to unlock their full flavour and offer a richer, more well-rounded curry paste at the end. 2-3 minutes will suffice; toast the spices just until you can smell their aromas being released, then tip them from the hot pan immediately.
Allow the spices to cool before grinding in a pestle and mortar.
Peel the garlic and the shallots; cut the base off the lemongrass and remove the toughest exterior layer if needs be; cut the stalks off your chillies; peel and coarsely chop the turmeric and ginger; and zest the lime.
Combine everything in a blender jug or nutribullet, along with a small splash of water to enable blending, then whizz on a high powder until smooth.
Scrape the paste into a sterilised jar. It will last for up to 2 weeks in your fridge, and indefinitely in your freezer (try freezing it in ice cubes trays and popping a few cubes out each time you fancy a homemade curry!).