$\"Thai$ <\/p>\n

Anyone who’s a regular reader of this blog has probably figured out that I cook quite a lot of Asian food. I’ve long been a lover of the flavors found in Asian cuisine, and I somewhat recently began doing most of my shopping at an Asian supermarket (H&A Supermarket<\/a> in Langley Park for anyone who’s in the area) and thus have easy access to many rarer ingredients for ridiculously cheap prices. When I discovered this store, I knew immediately what I had to make first: Thai curry. Thai food plays around a lot with mixing salty, sweet, and sour, and this curry paste is the first step in building a delicious curry with those flavors. For those of you who’ve cooked with fish sauce before, you know how intensely pungent it can be – but be prepared for the shrimp paste used here as it is even stronger. Trust me though, the flavor it adds is necessary.<\/p>\n

This recipe makes enough curry paste for six or more curries, and I like to freeze it for later use – to make it easy on yourself, freeze it into 3 – 4 Tbsp chunks (enough for a 4-serving curry recipe) as you can then just grab a chunk out of the freezer the next time you’re ready to make curry. Come back on Wednesday for my recipe for Thai red curry using this paste!<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThai Red Curry Paste<\/span><\/strong>
\nYield: 1 1\/2 cups curry paste<\/span><\/p>\n

Ingredients:<\/p>\n

\n
1 Tbsp + 1 tsp coriander seeds<\/span><\/li>\n
2 tsp cumin seeds<\/span><\/li>\n
1\/2 cup cilantro with stems<\/span><\/li>\n
9 – 10 bird’s eye chili peppers<\/span><\/li>\n
10 cloves garlic<\/span><\/li>\n
8 – 10 shallots<\/span><\/li>\n
4 stalks lemongrass, white parts only<\/span><\/li>\n
2-inch piece galangal<\/span><\/li>\n
2 – 3 red bell peppers<\/span> (optional)**<\/li>\n
1 tsp black peppercorns<\/span><\/li>\n
1\/4 tsp lemon granules<\/span>*<\/li>\n
1\/4 tsp lime juice<\/span><\/li>\n
1 Tbsp shrimp paste<\/span><\/li>\n

water, as needed<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
*Lemon granules<\/a> $\"\"$ are a handy ingredient to have around, but if you don’t have them, you can substitute lemon zest, lime zest, or a little extra lime juice.
\n**This is just for color – without it, your curry paste (and resulting curry) won’t be a pretty red color but will still be quite tasty. I only used one red bell pepper in mine, and as you can see in the picture (and this is even clearer in the curry I made from it – post coming Wednesday), it isn’t nearly as red as it should be.<\/p>\n
Method:
\n<\/p>\n
\n
Dry roast 1 Tbsp + 1 tsp coriander seeds<\/em> and 2 tsp cumin seeds<\/em> (for my dry roasting technique, see my post on chaat masala<\/a>).<\/li>\n
Roughly chop 1\/2 cup cilantro with stems<\/em>, 9 – 10 bird’s eye chili peppers<\/em>, 10 cloves garlic<\/em>, 8 – 10 shallots<\/em>, 4 stalks lemongrass, white parts only<\/em>, 2-inch piece galangal<\/em>, and 2 – 3 red bell peppers<\/em>.<\/li>\n
In a mortar and pestle<\/a> $\"\"$ (my preference) or food processor, combine the dry roasted spices with everything you’ve roughly chopped and 1 tsp black peppercorns<\/em>, 1\/4 tsp lemon granules<\/em>, 1\/4 tsp lime juice<\/em>, and 1 Tbsp shrimp paste<\/em>. Grind everything together (or pulse in the food processor) until it forms a paste, adding water, as needed<\/em>. Although you will end up with about 1 1\/2 cups of curry paste, I had to initially grind the paste in two batches in my 2-cup mortar and pestle.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>
Related Posts:<\/h3>
Chana Masala<\/a><\/li>
Mulligatawny Soup<\/a><\/li>
Thai Corn Salad<\/a><\/li><\/ul>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Anyone who’s a regular reader of this blog has probably figured out that I cook quite a lot of Asian food. I’ve long been a lover of the flavors found in Asian cuisine, and I somewhat recently began doing most of my shopping at an Asian supermarket (H&A Supermarket in Langley Park for anyone who’s…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":""},"categories":[4,125],"tags":[170,140,141,174,177,155,176,175,173],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1OY2q-em","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.seletsucre.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/890"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.seletsucre.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.seletsucre.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.seletsucre.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.seletsucre.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=890"}],"version-history":[{"count":20,"href":"https:\/\/www.seletsucre.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/890\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":990,"href":"https:\/\/www.seletsucre.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/890\/revisions\/990"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.seletsucre.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=890"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.seletsucre.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=890"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.seletsucre.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=890"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}