Recipe: Thai Green Curry

My favorite thing I did in Thailand was to take a cooking class. It has encouraged me to do the same in China over the summer, and to really explore the flavors over here. It's also shown me that, really, it's not hard to cook authentic asian food. What you need, more than anything, is a little bit of knowledge.

This recipe is very easy, if not completely authentic. In Thailand I made this with a few different types of eggplant, chicken, kafir limes and fresh basil. Of course I can't find most of that here and nobody is eating chicken much these days.

The key is to find good coconut milk, and good curry paste. You can make the curry paste on your own {I'm going to try when I find a blender} but I have found that the pre-packaged paste is fairly serviceable.

Ingredients:

1-2 tablespoons of green curry paste

Approximately 1.5 - 2 cups of coconut milk

meat and vegetables {I used shrimp because I had it, peas, and red and yellow bell peppers}

1 teaspoon of sugar

1 tablespoon oil

1-2 teaspoons of Thai fish sauce {this is different from Chinese fish sauce}

Directions:

Heat a wok or skillet with oil inside.

When the pan is hot add the curry paste {if you make your own curry paste, it will have oil in it. No need to add extra} and saute for a few minutes until you can really smell the curry.

Add 1/4 of the coconut milk and stir the curry paste into it. 

Bring to a bubble for about 1 minute.

Add another 1/4 of the milk and repeat.

Add the remaining milk and repeat again.

Add your meat and let simmer in the curry paste until cooked.

Add your vegetables and cook until desired tenderness {I reversed this a bit, as shrimp cooks super fast and I like my vegetables pretty tender}.

Add fish sauce and sugar. 

Taste. If it's super spicy, you can add a bit more sugar.

Here are both pictures from the cooking class and from my own kitchen in Tianjin. 

Enjoy!