Green Curry Night

We were rushing home after work yesterday. I was all excited to buy the ingredients for Green Curry and Lemon Rice. "Just bought the ready ingredients" has always been the answer I heard everytime I ask someone about how to cook green curry. So finally I found a decent recipe and got all motivation to make my own green curry paste. I reached the supermarket at around 6pm, few minutes later my two kitchen buddies were joining me. Oh you see, supermarket has always been one of my favorite playgrounds. We just needed some ingredients but we ended up spending an hour running around inside. It was too late to cook both because we were all so hungry, so sad to say, the Lemon Rice cooking was canceled. Never mind. It will sure come in one of this days.   

So, last night was the Green Curry Night... and I am satisfied that I did try making my own green curry paste.

Ingredients for Green Curry Paste

60gr (4) Green chili

100gr Shallots (optional)

30gr Garlic (optional)

40gr Lemon grass

40gr Coriander root (optional)

30gr Ginger

30gr Galangal or can be replaced with 1 tsp Galangal powder

10gr (Kaffir) lime rind

1 tbsp Coriander powder

2 tsp Cumin powder

1/2 - 1 tsp Black peppercorns

6 Cloves

1 tsp Nutmeg powder

1 tsp Shrimp paste (optional)

1 tsp Salt

125ml Vegetable Oil

Method
Blend all the ingredients into a smooth paste.

Ingredients for Green Curry

Note: chicken/prawn/squid/vegetables: eggplant/carrot/potato/bean curd cube, can be used as variation.

Cooking oil

Green curry paste (prepared as above)

4 tbsp Fish sauce (optional) or can be replaced with sesame oil

750ml Coconut milk

1.0kg Chicken fillet/prawn/squid (optional)

500gr Eggplant/carrot/potato/bean curd cubes

100gr Green peppercorns (optional)

3 stalks Lemon grass, bruised

6 Green chili

5 (Kaffir) lime leaves

A handful of Basil leaves

300ml Coconut cream

Method

1. Heat oil and sauté the green curry paste until oil separates. Add in the XXX pieces, fish sauce or sesame oil and the coconut milk.

2. Simmer until XXX is almost cooked. Add in the rest of the ingredients and simmer until the XXX is thoroughly cooked. Garnish with basil leaves.

From Kitchen Runaway

Oh, just some notes from the experience last night. We purposely added 6 chili paddy, which makes the curry tastes hotter. I think even without that, the hot sensation from the black pepper, ginger, galangal root and ginger is enough. Also, blending all these roots are not that easy, so maybe using all powder ingredients are somewhat a better choice. If you insisted that you need the roots to give the paste more natural texture, then perhaps after mixing with the coconut milk/cream, you can pass it through a strainer.

Hey... hey... hey... Never ever forget the basil leaves!!!

~ Cheers