thai curries

[theeman]

try the little white van trailer on Chapel Market. fantastic! the green curry and beef masuman are the dishes of choice, oh yes. got a right sweat on after that. top grub.

[sermad]

hahah thats 2 seconds from me! ring me next time you go

Everyone at work swears by them but their vege curry had more salt than the dead sea the last time I tried! (Maybe it was a bad batch!)

[Blighty]

mmmmmmm....curry for lunch I think.

[Nick Cope]

Ahem, if I don't mind saying so myself, I make the best green curry i've ever tasted.

[Rich Hero]

Ahem, if I don't mind saying so myself, I make the best green curry i've ever tasted.

Recipe/tips please?

[Nick Cope]

Ok, here goes - forgive me if I forget anything:

Get some dessicated coconut (non sweetened - noticed that the American version of dess coconut is quite disgusting) and make your own coconut milk this way because it gives a better texture.

two cups of dess coconut, blend for 30 seconds with two cups of hot water. Sieve the liquid into a bowl - more surface area, the better. Put this straight into the fridge, as when it cools down, it will vield a crust - this is your thick cocunut milk. It'll take a couple of hours to do this.

Repeat the process with the same dess coconut. This will give you the thin coconut milk - you don't have to bother putting this into the fridge.

You may wanna make two lots of thick and thin coconut milk, depending on how much curry you wanna make.

The principle is that you start cooking with the thick coconut milk and use the thin stuff like adding water later on. If you can't be hassled with all the blending etc, then get tins, but make sure you buy a old school brand that will have thick milk on top and thin underneath - never shake these tins. Newer brands like shit-arse Blue Dragon is marketed for idiot Islingtonites - it's all thin milk and uttery misses the point - then again, they're used to eating thin-ass, no-heat green curries in the crappy joints down Upper St. They'd eat bright pink Chicken Tikka Massala if they didn't already associate it with builders - the twats...

Ok, now make the green curry paste - put all this in a blender:

some onion - small strong ones are best - this the base of the paste, so the more onions you use, the more paste you'll make.

chillis - 6 dried red ones
ground corriander
ground cumin (half the amount of the g.corriander)
pinch of ground tumeric

Fresh corriander - take a bunch, get it from a market, as supermarket veg/herbs are a fucking joke and have zero taste. You need corriander with the roots still on. The root is where all the flavour is at. Wash the mud off, chop off the stringy bit of the root then finely chop the rest. Add some leaves too for greenness and save a bunch of leaves for later.

lemon rind - no plith, chop it up fine
laos powder - optional really
lime leaves
lemon grass - I can get away with the rind just fine.
garlic
salt
peppercorns

Shrimp paste - called Kapi. This shit is lethal. Buy a small tub from Chinatown. Keep it in two extra tubs because it stinks and will make everything in your fridge smell like piss. Add a tiny amount and I mean tiny! Like two peas of it, or maybe just one pea...

I think that should be it. Add some oil, groundnut, to help it blend well - I prefer to use water too, to help with the texture, so it doesn't get too greasy. Blend it. Now you have your paste and you can store it for a while too.

Big pan. Carefully spoon off the thick coconut crust from the milk you stored in the fridge earlier into the hot pan - high heat, stir like mad til it bubbles, then turn right down keep stirring. When you can see clear oil separating from the milk around the edges (run a wooden spoon through to create an edge, then watch), then throw in the paste and let it cook - keep stiring.

It'll change smell. When it does, throw in the chicken that I never mentioned before - no skin, chopped into bite size pieces. Throw in some on the bone too: legs and wings from the chicken you just cleaved.

Stir in the chicken for a while, then thrown in the rest of the coconut milk: whatever's left from the batch that had the crust, and also the thin stuff.

Now add A LOT of fish sauce - about 6 wooden spoons full: this and the kapi cooks into the sauce and enhances flavour. Reduce to how you like it. personally, I love the gravy to be thicker then normal, way thicker!

Near the end, chop some fresh green chilli lenghtways into very thin strips - throw that in. Take off the heat and add a load of fresh corriander leaves and stir in. Add more leaves when you plate it up.

Serve this with UNSALTED rice. The curry is strong, hot and salty, so the rice needs to be clean and unsalty. Make a Burmese white curry with fresh pineapple and cardamon - goes well with it.

There you go Rich, now can I do some fucking work?!

[SARGE]

Recipe/tips please?

i really do think there should have a recipe/top tips kinda thread.

[SARGE]

Sorry! The administrator has specified that users can only post one message every 30 seconds.

does my name change at 500 posts.

[SARGE]

result.

[Rich Hero]

Sorry! The administrator has specified that users can only post one message every 30 seconds.

does my name change at 500 posts.

Apparently not, you're still Sarge?

Cheers Nick - will give it a go (I can never get mine to taste 'right'). Now get back to work.

[Nick Cope]

I'll post up my version of Fesenjun next time (sweet and sour based Persian dish, with walnuts and pomegranats, fucking awesome)...

[sermad]

dope recipe nick - but I like my green curry to have a bit of veg to it so I add aubergine and onion.

Its nice with fish too. A nice meaty fish in there goes in a treat - try hoki.

[vibra]

dope recipe nick - but I like my green curry to have a bit of veg to it so I add aubergine and onion.

Its nice with fish too. A nice meaty fish in there goes in a treat - try hoki.

Word. Or even just a bit of King Prawn action in there..

[Col Wolfe]

real Thai curry is more soup-like. So there.

[Nick Cope]

Yes, we know that, Colonel.