Khrueng Kaeng เครื่องแกง - Thai Curry Pastes

You can make Thai curry at home pretty easily.

You will need:

Thai Curry Paste
Coconut milk – 400ml
Vegetables / Meat (whatever you feel like putting in)
Kaffir lime leaves
Palm sugar (or sugar)
Fish sauce
Limes
Garnish (Thai basil, coriander, mint)

Use a saucepan, wok is better if you have it, and heat it up. Carefully open the can of coconut milk and take the cream off, put that in the hot wok and the oil should separate when it gets hot. (This is called ‘cracking the coconut’ but it may not happen with coconut milks with added stabilisers). If you can’t skim off the coconut cream off, you can heat up a spoonful of coconut or vegetable oil.

Add a tablespoon or more of curry paste into the oil and stir around so that it fries the paste and releases the flavours, about 30 seconds – one minute.

You can then add in your meat and cook it, it should cool the mixture down a bit, you don’t want it to burn. Add in vegetables and cook them for a couple of minutes then add a couple of kaffir lime leaves, add in the rest of the coconut milk and cook until the vegetables are done.

Add fish sauce and palm sugar to season the dish. The fish sauce adds saltiness and a depth of flavour, it can be replaced by tamari and lime juice if you don’t eat fish. Palm sugar is commonly used but white sugar can be used. You will start to notice how sweet restaurant curries are after making it yourself.

Serve over rice, you can garnish with coriander leaves, mint or Thai basil. You can also have some sliced red chillies and lime wedges.