RED THAI CURRY PASTE

BRILLIANT RECIPE

I just love making all my families food from scratch as much as possible and this last year has been a learning journey to remove that last little bit of convenience!!!  I know how much easier it is when cooking family dinners to reach for a jar of paste but being a family that grows and raises all our own food I secretly knew I was cheating, there are a few ingredients that I do not and will not make and on a balance I am happy with that, ingredients like coconut oil or cold pressed olive oil, soy sauce, marmite and spelt or 00 Italian flour!  I leave that to the artisans, but a jar of tom yum or red Thai curry paste, tamarind pulp, tahini paste and peanut butter is something I can and should do.

I WILL NEVER GO BACK

I will never go back, this is such a fragrant paste that I cannot believe my taste buds ever allowed me to accept the jarred version now I have tried this.  I know, I know it is obvious...I was just being convenient...

Prep Time 10 minutes / Pounding Time 10 minutes

I cannot shout out enough how fragrant and gorgeous this is, I made a small mason jar's worth that would have kept in the fridge for a couple of weeks, had we not eaten it all within the week!

Ingredients

(makes 4 tablespoons worth)

3 tbsp whole white peppercorns

1 flat tsp cumin seeds ground

1 flat tsp coriander seeds ground

8 dried medium hot chillies

(soaked in warm water)

1/2 tsp sea salt

6 cloves garlic

1 shallot finely diced

1 tbsp finely chopped bashed lemongrass stalk

2 tbsp coriander stems finely chopped

1 tbsp minced galangal

1 kaffir lime zested

This is the fun part, you can skip this and blitz all the ingredients up in a blender, but I urge you not to, it changes the flavour of the paste and is not as fragrant.  Place all the dry ingredients in your pestle and mortar and grind to a powder then add the rest of the ingredients and pound away until you have a lovely smooth ish paste, this took my husband (I borrowed his muscles!) around 10 minutes.

Place in a air tight jar and keep in the fridge for up to 2 weeks or until needed.  Most recipes for four servings require 2-4 tablespoons of the paste according to your taste.

THAI PRAWN RED CURRY

Ingredients

(serves 2)

20 fresh raw cold water prawns shell on/off

1 tbsp coconut oil

1 onion finely diced

1 clove garlic finely diced

1 small bunch fresh coriander, stalks too chopped

1 can organic coconut milk

2 tbsp red Thai curry paste

Serve with cooked basmati rice

Peel the fresh water prawns and place the heads and shells in a pan, cook for a couple of minutes until all pink, add 300ml of water and simmer until reduced by half, strain through a sieve pushing all the juices out of the shells and reserve to one side as your prawn stock.

Heat your saucepan medium hot and add the coconut oil, onion and garlic and gently soften for a couple of minutes, next add the red Thai curry paste and cook out for a couple more minutes until the paste starts to stick to the bottom of the pan.

Add the prawn stock and de-glaze the pan, bring to a simmer, add the prawns and cook half way through, add the coconut milk and bring back to a simmer to finish cooking the prawns, finish with the fresh coriander and serve with some light fragrant basmati rice.