Keep Cookin'

So, thanks to my brother and his epic, fastidiously organised, round-the-world-trip, during which he only managed to reach Thailand before deciding to halt and make permanent camp, we had the opportunity to spend 3 ½ sun-soaked weeks on holiday catching up, attending his wedding and sampling the absolute gastronomic delights of local cuisine.…result!!

I was keen to learn as much as possible during the visit, because going out to eat good Thai food here is seriously expensive and has always come across to me as being a form of alchemy to concoct. With this in mind, we arrived in Northern Thailand and promptly booked ourselves on to a local cookery course. On the morning of the course, we arrived at the school feeling slightly nervous about how difficult this could be – after all, Thai curries are bursting with flavour and surely, must be pretty complex to create? Well, we couldn’t have been further from the truth and I noted down a number of the dishes we had the delight of cooking and sampling to share with you and hopefully dispel with this myth of ‘complexity’ (unless this myth was self-created, of course….).

In addition to this, my brother’s wedding was scheduled to take place during the trip; he has married a local girl from the Lisu Hill Tribe, who reside in the middle of the jungle, on the mountains near the Burmese border. During the wedding, we we honoured to be invited to to stay for 3 days in my brother’s wife’s village and during this, were able to sample some fantastically simple, yet incredibly tasty indigenous food. I think I shall dedicate another article to this, as it probably merits its own – it is the first time I have ever eaten raw pork, but as it was slaughtered not ½ hour before being consumed, then its also the freshest pork I have ever tasted too!

Ok, so here’s a recipe I noted down for Thai Red curry; its incredibly easy to put together, seriously flavoursome and the paste can be stored in the fridge for about a month (if you put oil over the top to seal it).

Red Curry Paste

So first of all, you need to make a paste – just up the amount if you want to make more for storage in the fridge:

• A couple of fresh red chillies (if you want spicy paste, then leave in the seeds)
• 1 tablespoon of lemon grass
• 1 tablespoon of galangal (if you can’t get hold of this, then double up the lemongrass)
• 1 teaspoon of garlic
• 1 teaspoon of shallot
• ½ Teaspoon of lime skin
• ½ Teaspoon of coriander root (or, 1 teaspoon of coriander stem)
• ½ Teaspoon of coriander seeds
• ½ Teaspoon of black peppercorns
• ¼ Teaspoon of cumin seeds

Ok, so start with the seeds and dry fry them in a wok until they become fragrant (they may even begin to pop) and then put them in to your mortar and grind them in to a powder.

Now there are 2 ways you can produce the paste:

1. Place all the ingredients in to the mortar, with a pinch of salt and grind together to make a paste, or
2. Place all the ingredients in to a blender and whiz up for a moment until its a paste

I’ve used both methods (usually the blender if I’m running short on time!), but they both produce good tasting paste. Obviously the traditional method is using the pestle and mortar and there is something pretty satisfying about expelling energy pounding the ingredients, rather than flicking a switch….!

Red Curry Recipe:

As with any recipe, this is just a guideline so feel free to use other vegetables – I’ve thrown in mushrooms, green beans (these added another dimension of texture as well as flavour), pepper and used fish such as cod rather than chicken. I also find that using chicken thighs rather than breast means the chicken remains moist.

• 1 Onion, chopped
• Eggplant (I tend to chop these at the very last minute, otherwise they turn brown)
• A couple of baby corns, chopped
• 1 Kaffir lime leaf chopped
• 4 or 5 mushrooms chopped
• 20 or so sweet basil leaves
• A couple of chicken thighs, de-boned, skin removed and chopped in to bite-sized pieces
• 1 Cup of coconut milk (about ¾ of a can)
• 2 or 3 Tablespoons of curry paste (to taste)

You also need to prepare a sauce to add at the end of the cooking, which is made of:

• 1 Tablespoon of palm sugar or brown sugar
• 3 Tablespoons of fish sauce

Ok, so now the fun bit!

1. Heat some oil in a wok
2. Add the curry paste until it becomes fragrant (only takes a matter of seconds)
3. Add the chicken and cook
4. TIP – if the paste or chicken start to burn, then just add some coconut milk
5. Add the onion, eggplant, baby corns (and any other harder vegetables you’re adding) and cook for about 30 seconds or so
6. Put in the coconut milk and stir, then wait until it starts to boil
7. Add the sugar and fish sauce
8. Throw in the mushrooms
9. Turn off the heat and add the basil leaves

I tend to cook either Thai fragrant or basmati rice to go with this. Enjoy!

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