Thai Green Curry

I love thai food, especially coconut curries.  Thai curry is a good simple dish found at every thai restaurant.  Because of this, I believe how well a restaurant's curry is made reflects the quality of their other dishes.  My favorite is green curry, named obviously from its green color.  The rich color comes from green chillies and herbs.  This dish is usually made very spicy and prepared with meats and vegetables.  Luckily, for those with weak stomachs - like me, you can make this dish mild at home.

The basis of green curry comes from a curry paste.  Many stores sell ready made pastes, so all you need is to add coconut milk.  The pastes, however, come VERY spicy and contain wheat, along with msg.  When you make the paste yourself, you use fresh herbs and know what's going in.  The end product is refreshing.  The flavors are subtle and not overpowered by spiciness and msg.  You appreciate your senses more and can taste how the herbs play upon each other.

I based my paste from this online recipe:

http://thaifood.about.com/od/thaicurrypasterecipes/r/greencurrypaste.htm.  It was easy to follow and turned out very nicely.

I prepared this dish with chicken, scallops, shrimp as my meats and thai green eggplant, mushrooms, bamboo shoots, as my vegetables.  You can find thai eggplants at an asian grocery store.  This dish is very versatile and can be made with anything from beef to potatoes.  Feel free to substitute with what you like.  If you have any extra curry paste left over, freeze it and use another day.

Start with your ingredients:

lemon grass, garlic, onion, cilantro, basil, lime

 

 Combine all ingredients and blend with a food processor.  I used a blender and found it very difficult.  I actually ended up blending the ends of my chopstick off because I was trying to push down the basil and cilantro.  So if you have a food processor use it!  I also didn't add shrimp paste because that contains wheat, and instead substituted with salt and gluten free soy sauce.

Ingredients blended into a paste.

Once the paste is made, put aside and cook the chicken.  Coat the chicken in cornstarch and soy sauce first.  Then fry it in oil till browned.  Set chicken aside.

In a stone pot heat some oil.  When hot, put in curry paste and cook till fragrant.  Then add coconut milk and simmer.

Now add quartered eggplants, simmer for 5 min.  Then add vegetables, seafood, and chicken.

Thai green eggplant

Canned bamboo Shoots

scallops and shrimp

oyster mushrooms

Simmer till meat scallops and shrimp and done.  Serve with rice, enjoy!

Here's the full recipe, adapted from http://thaifood.about.com/od/thaicurrypasterecipes/r/greencurrypaste.htm.

Ingredients

Green Curry Paste

• 1 stalk lemongrass
• 1 jalapeno pepper (remove the seeds if you want mild or use more if you want spicy)
• 1 onion
• 5 cloves of garlic
• 1 thumb size of ginger
• 1 bunch of cilantro
• 1 bunch of fresh basil
• 2/3 tsp ground cumin
• 2/3 tsp black pepper
• 2/3 tsp ground coriander
• 3 Tbsp fish sauce (make sure it's gluten free)
• 1 Tbsp gluten free soy sauce
• 1/2 tsp of salt
• Juice from one lime

Combine and blend all ingredients in a food processor.  Set aside.

Main Curry

• 14-20 oz can of coconut milk
• 10 oz can of bamboo shoots
• chicken breast, cubed
• 1 tsp gluten free soy sauce
• corn starch
• mushrooms
• scallops
• shrimp
• thai green eggplant
• 1 tbsp of fish sauce

Main Curry:

1. In a stone pot (can be regular pot), heat oil.  Cook the curry paste till fragrant.  Then add 1 can of coconut milk, stir.

2. Coat the cubed chicken in cornstarch with 1tsp of soy sauce, mix.  Heat oil in a pan and cook the chicken till brown, set aside.

3. Quarter the thai eggplants and put into coconut, curry soup.  Simmer for 5 min.   Add bamboo, chicken, scallops, shrimp, mushrooms.  Cook till scallops are done.  Add 1 tbsp of fish sauce, stir.  Serve with rice.