Thai Green Curry Paste

A lot of people tend to instantly think of curries when they think about Thai food. There is a lot more to Thai food then just curries however they do tend to be the more popular dishes. Thai coconut-based curries are numerous but the more well known ones are red, green, yellow, panang and masamam curries. Thai names for these are gaeng phet (red), gaeng kiow wahn (green curry), gaeng leuang (yellow), gaeng phanaeng (panang) and gaeng massaman (masamam).

Green curry is the only type of Thai curry paste made with fresh Thai green chilies and thus usually the hottest. All other types of curry paste are made up of dried Thai chilies.

Ready made curry pastes are widely available in Thai and most Asian supermarkets, but just like any cooking, making it fresh yourself gives you a totally different result, and this way you can also orient it to your taste.

What I would like to share with you today is a recipe to make fresh green curry paste.

The key ingredients for most Thai curry pastes are mainly wet and fragrant and include fresh chillies, lemon grass, galangal, garlic, shallot, kaffir lime leaves, cilantro roots and shrimp paste.

Green Curry Paste

Ingredients
15 large fresh green hot chilies
3 shallots, sliced
9 cloves garlic
1 tsp finely sliced fresh galangal
1 tbsp sliced fresh lemon grass
9 tsp finely sliced kaffir lime rind
1 tsp chopped coriander root
5 white peppercorns
1 tbsp roasted coriander seeds
1 tsp sea salt
1 tsp shrimp paste

Method
Combine coriander seeds, and peppercorn in a mortar, pound well. Transfer to a bowl and put aside.
Pound hot chilies and salt together well. Add the remaining ingredients except shrimp paste, pound until mixed well.
Add the coriander mixture and shrimp paste, continue pounding until smooth and fine.

And you have yourself fresh green curry paste.