RED THAI CURRY PASTE RECIPE AWESOME...

MAKE YOUR OWN RED THAI CURRY PASTE

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.

MAKE YOUR OWN COCONUT MILK

  

     

There is a simple effective method to opening a coconut in one hit that breaks the coconut in half, over a bowl take a bolster, not a club hammer like in my photo!  My husband hit this coconut several times and not a dent or crack did it make, a quick google and a bolster tool and hey presto successful full split all the way round in the first whack!

Take your coconut and locate the three eyes in a shape of a triangle on the end, hold the coconut with the one eye point of the triangle facing up, this is the side you are going to whack as it is the weak side of the shell, with a bolster or large (machette) style knife give one solid confidante whack holding the coconut over a bowl, a crack will appear all the way around the coconut, job done!  Pull apart and let the liquid pour off into the bowl, to remove the coconut flesh from the shell you can do this one of two ways, either slide a knife between the shell and flesh and prize off or whack the outer shell cracking and peeling off.  

Either finely grate by hand or blitz in a blender all the coconut flesh, I blended my coconut for quickness and ease.

Add twice the amount of just boiled water to the coconut and blend for around two to three minutes until you have a creamy coconut milk.

Take a bowl and place a muslin over the bowl, pour your blended coconut mix into the muslin and strain into the bowl, then gather up the muslin cloth and squeeze out all the liquid.

This is your first pressing and the top of this milk with set with the coconut cream.  Repeat the process again and you will make coconut milk again but a little thinner on consistency and flavour.  Keep the now soft coconut flesh and use in cakes, soups and stir fry's.

My geeky food science bit...

Coconuts are rich in fibre, Vitamin C, E,, B1, B5, B6,, iron, selenium, sodium, calcium, magnesium, phosphorous.  Extremely healthy MFCA and lauric acid easily digested and almost immediately broken down in your saliva and gastric juices.  This means pancreatic fat digesting enzymes are not essential which puts less strain on your liver allowing it to work more efficiently.  Anti viral, anti bacterial, protects body form infections and viruses.  Regulates thyroid function and is highly nutritious.