Green curry paste
Green curry is the most classic and popular Thai curry in Thailand and perhaps all over the world. The most important factor of a great curry paste is using the right ingredients to get that flavour explosion when you eat!
Servings
For 2-3 curries
Ready In:
30 mins
Good For:
Lunch & Dinner
Introduction
About this Recipe
By: Cherie Jones
It is not hard to make green curry paste from scratch but it takes some time to prepare. Don’t be put off by that because it is worth your time and effort. You need to get the right ingredients which you can find from any good high-street supermarket or, of course an asian supermarket. Let’s get started.
Green curry paste – Ingredients
- 14 green chillies
- 1 teaspoons cumin seeds
- 2 teaspoons corriander seeds
- 1/4 teaspoon white pepper corn
- 1.5 teaspoons rock salt
- 2 teaspoons kaffir lime leaves (finely chopped)
- 1 tablespoon coriander roots (finely chopped)
- 1 tablespoon galangal (finely chopped)
- 3 tablespoons lemongrass (finely chopped) use the half bottom bits
- 3 tablespoons shallots (finely chopped)
- 2 tablespoons garlic (finely chopped)
- 3 teaspoons lime zest
- 14 leaves Thai sweet basil leaves
Step by Step Instructions
Step 1
Make sure you remove all the seeds from the green chillies. Then cut them to small pieces. This will prevent the paste from being far too hot!
Step 2
Toast the coriander seeds and cumin seeds by putting them in the dry pan, warming gently, moving them occasionally to gently toast them. When they start to smell nice, take them out of the pan and leave them to cool down. Don’t use them when they are still hot. And don’t burn them.
If you don’t want to do this step, you can skip it.
Step 3
Pound our dry ingredients, coriander seeds, cumin seeds and white pepper corns, in mortar and pestle. You can use a coffee grinder for this, if you don’t have mortar & pestle.
When they are very fine, leave them in a separate bowl. We will add them bit by bit when we pound our paste in a mortar & pestle.
Step 4
Add green chillies and a teaspoon of rock salt in mortar & pestle then pound them until you get the smooth paste. You can use a food processor for this.
Step 5
Now add the Thai sweet basil leaves and continue pounding them with the chillies. The sweet basil leaves will help us to get the green colour in our paste. You can add a little of our dry ingredients at this point – it will help to keep prevent the mixture from getting to wet and will help provide friction to mash everything together.
Step 6
Add galangal, kaffir lime leaves, lemon grass and coriander roots in and pound them together. At any point that you notice the mixture gets too wet, you can add some dry ingredients in. Keep pounding until they look fine.
Step 7
Add shallots, chopped garlic, lime zest and some dry ingredients into mortar & pestle. Pound them until fine.
Step 8
Add shrimp paste (or miso paste for vegetarian option). Add all the rest of our dry ingredients in. Pound everything together until they look fine and smell nice.
Green curry paste will be OK in the fridge for up to 4 weeks and for up to 12 weeks in the freezer.
