I just want something relatively simple and healthy for lunch. I had my first TGC in Vegas and loved it so I have some Mae Ploy paste in my pantry. I was thinking of just doing this
Fry off the paste
Add chicken broth, kaffir lime leaves and cook the chicken breasts along with snow peas, chilis for about 10 minutes
Take off the heat and finish with coconut milk and Thai basil chopped.
Put over white rice and store for lunch the next few days.
What do people think of this idea? Am I missing anything necessary for even the most basic Thai green curry? Anything simple I can do to bump his up a level or two?
I make my backyard Thai in a similar manner. But I also like to throw in some stuff to make it healthier, mostly garlic, red and yellow bell peppers, jalapenos, ginger and onions, all of which are anti inflammatory. Your recipe is simpler and probably would taste better than mine though.
Thai curry is an amazingly flexible dish. I prefer a good gumbo, but can’t seem to make it right. My old girlfriend was a professional cook and she gave up trying to make it from recipes. Said she needed someone to show her how.
I made TGC a couple times recently. Mine are more coconut milk based. After letting the milk sit for a few weeks, skim the fat/cream off the top and fry with the paste. Add in aromatics to fry: ginger & garlic pastes, minced shallot and lemongrass, the lime leaves. Then, more milk before adding the meat and veggies. More broth as needed. Finish with fish sauce and some sugar to taste. The pastes are so versatile, you really can’t go wrong.
I really wouldn’t combine the curry and rice until time for serving, though.
The way we do it is to fry off the paste in a little bit of coconut milk, then add more of the coconut milk, then add the vegetables in order of cooking time, then add the meat toward the end, and season to taste with fish sauce (nam pla /nuoc mam) and sugar (palm, if you have it). I find that if you start with equal quantities by volume, I end up putting in a bit more fish sauce than sugar.
Our basic recipe is one small can of curry paste, 2 cans coconut milk, and then start with 1/3 cup each of sugar and fish sauce, adjusting to taste. We often add a boatload of vegetables- bamboo shoots, thai basil, carrots, sweet potatoes, onions, bell peppers, regular potatoes (waxy types), green onions, shallots, and anything else that might work, along with chicken. Often we skip the chicken entirely.
I’ve always been told to fry the paste in a small amount of coconut mik for a few minutes at the start, and add it in to cook. Adding it in at the end has a different effect.
As above, I have learned to fry the paste in coconut cream before proceeding with my recipe. First, fry the cream until it begins to separate, then add the paste. Or you can fry the cream in a bit of oil. This is the technique:
This is also the technique described in David Thompson’s epic tome, Thai Food, perhaps the most comprehensive English-language resource on Thai cuisine. (I can’t imagine a more complete one – my copy is over 650 pages.) He suggests using a mix of cream & oil if the cream you use has difficultly cracking because it’s homogenized.
I think the basic idea is to cook the paste in the fat, a technique that is seen throughout many cuisines in order to develop fat-soluble flavors.
I have so many Thai restaurants around with green curry at great prices, I don’t find it worth it to make it or purchase the ingredients that would likely go bad before I was in the mood again. I guess if you like it, but want to tweak it a bit, maybe. But for me it’s not worth the effort.
Only two technique things i’d add (caveat I cook curry a lot but not Thai style). The main thing to get a good flavor is to make sure the spices are thoroughly cooked (“bunjalled” as my Guyanese wife calls it) through before adding anything else. And also with any sauce whether its curry, tomato, or whatever reducing is the key point to a good flavor, 10 minutes seems a bit short IMO
You should be the judge. I’d be happy with very little more than the green curry paste. I’d use any of fish, oyster, or soy sauce, and lately I’ve been using Golden Mountain sauce in a lot of Asian dishes. You have plenty of ingredients there, snow peas could be replaced or extended with all sorts of vegetables, thin slices of carrot, chopped celery, tomato, scallions. If I’m ambitious I’ll crack some coriander seeds and other spices before the curry paste.
If you really want to kick it up, brown mustard seeds in a pan then let them cook in a couple of tbsps of ghee or light oil while making the rest of the dish. Put it in a separate container to reheat and pour over your lunch the next day. Prepare a small card with the following to show to people. “Sorry, can’t talk right now, my mouth and lips are on fire”.
The main effort is the vegetable prep, so it’s not much more effort than any stir fry. I don’t make it anymore because enough green curry paste to make it taste like green curry makes it too spicy for my wimpy children.
So do I need fresh kaffir lime leaves or dried? Also, I had thrown out the cheap-ass fish sauce I bought a while ago (it was hideous). Bought some good stuff on Amazon and waiting for delivery. I think I will try my first batch next week if I can get the lime leaves and Thai basil and appropriate chiles.
I have only ever used fresh kaffir lime because that is what I had available, so I can’t say about that. Fish sauce is supposed to be extremely strong, and only tastes good when highly diluted in your dish.