Thai Green Curry

Here we go kids, its a Thai classic and its top banana tasty stuff!
We learn't to cook this at our cookery school in Chiang Mai, so this recipe is similer to theirs, but we've changed it slightly, basically cause it needed some Corriander in it and definately a lot more chilli! First make the paste then go on to make the curry.
This recipe should be good for 4 people, but don't quote me on that.


Green curry paste

Ingredients:

8 small green chillies
4 Garlic cloves
4 Shallots
2 Lemon grass sticks ( the white bit and about a third of the soft green bit)
1 thin slice of Galangal ( half a human ear size)
1 handfull of fresh Coriander
2 small 10p size pieces of Kaffir lime rind or normal lime rind
a pinch of Salt

To make the paste, shove all the ingredients in a blender or cut up till they're tiny, weeny pieces. Now put this green, gorgeous smelling mush into a morter and 'mash it up' till its a smooth paste. This will take 5-10 mins of mashing. This bits important cause it binds all the flavours together and won't leave any annoying bits of lemon grass floating around your curry.

Making the Curry

Ingredients:

1/2 a sliced Onion
2-3 breasts of chicken cut into smallish bits
some veggies, eggplant if you can get it, otherwise, courgette, broccoli, potatoe, etc)
2 teaspoons suger (brown or white)
2 tablespons fisg sauce
6 or so Kaffir lime leaves (fresh if possible, but dry will do)
a few Thai Basil leaves (Must be Thai basil, ordinary won't do)
1 can of coconut milk (not the half-fat crap)
1 pinch of salt

Cooking it:

Tip the coconut milk in a saucepan and bring to the boil, then lower the heat.
When you can see oil (coconut oil that is) on the top, it's time to put the chicken, onion and your paste in and give it a stir.
Once the chicken is cooked (4-5 mins) put your veggies, suger, fish sauce and salt in.

When everything is cooked, remove from the heat and stir in your lime and basil leaves.

Serve with rice (sticky or jasmine)

You may need to experiment with amounts of herbs and chilli to get your perfect curry.

Fruit with chilli?

Short one this. Ever dipped pieces of fruit into chilli and salt? No? Well its about time everyone did, cause its grrrrrreat! Its very simple this, get some salt, get some chilli flakes, more salt than chilli and mash together with a pestle and morter. You should end up with orange salt thats got a chilli kick, if you want you could add a small amout of suger as well, but see how it goes.
Then the fruit; the best fruit / chilli /salt combination we've had had been green or normal mango and pinapple, but try it with anything. If you get a mango, my advice it to not let it get soft and cut it up when it has the texture of an apple. Then relax and dip away, have a drink standing by in case the chilli or salt is to strong for your tastes, mmmmm, wicked stuff.

Beef Laap

Next up is Laap or Lap or Lab or Lahp (the name seems to change from menu to menu). It's the national dish of Laos and its well tasty! Eat it with sticky rice of course and papaya salad (recipe another time).
I've amalgamated a couple of recipes that I've found on the net, so hope it works, all the main flavours are there anyway, you're supposed to put in a banana flower to, but I'm guessing thats going to be to hard to get in the old UK.


Ingredients

Minced beef, a normal sized packet. You could use pork or chicken too or if you are particularly weird....tofu :(

2 large cloves garlic, sliced

2 tablespoons soy sauce

2 tablespoons ground roasted sticky rice (fry some sticky rice in a pan carefuly, it will easily stick, until brown and then crush using a pestal and morter).

2 red chillies, finely sliced (less or more dependent on spicyness you want)

1/3 cup finely chopped spring onions.

3 tablespoons chopped mint

3 tablespoons coriander finely chopped

1 kaffir lime leaf

½ teaspoon chopped lemon grass

2 - 3 tablespoon fish sauce

2 - 3 tablespoon squeezed lime

½ teaspoon chopped galangal or ginger



Method

Heat oil in wok until hot, then add the beef. Fry over medium to hot heat. Remove from oil, drain and cool.
Then fry your garlic, lemon grass and ginger until barely golden, then add the fish sauce, the lime juice and the soy sauce.
Sprinkle the ground roasted sticky rice over the mixture, and mix together. Taste and adjust soy sauce if necessary.
Take off the heat and add the sliced chillies and chopped spring onions, mint and coriander. Lightly mix, then pile on a serving dish.

You should end up with a plate of minced, herby deliciousness, fairly dry but with just a little juice that you can dip your little balls of rice into!

Easy! Eat with sticky rice of course :)

Further reading:

Laocuisine.net
Epicurious
More Laap
Further Lao food Links

Sticky or Lazy?

For a long time I used to think that sticky rice was cooked by lazy people.
How could you let rice cook so long, that it became that sticky and what was enjoyable about rice that you couldn't seperate easily with a fork.
Well, in Laos I have dicovered why sticky rice is so good. First off, it tastes nice. That helps obviously, but I've found it to be a grower and now I have to have it every day. It's just a little bit different tasting to normal rice, its really hard to articulate the taste, maybe its a bit sweeter? Its definately more chewy!
What I really like about sticky rice though, is that its practical.
I would watch people buying chicken on a stick through the bus window thinking, mmmmm chicken, mmmm flies and then I spotted what else they were buying, yup, sticky rice in a bag. Its so easy to eat on the go, you just grab a little bit off and roll it into a ball, then pop it into your mouth with said chicken and hopefuly no flies. Its so simple and tasty, sad I know, but its really captured my imagination and tastebuds. It always arrives in a little basket, even in Brighton and you just grab a bit and dunk it, like bread into whatever you're eating. It really soaks up any juices on your plate without falling apart like normal rice. I'm investing in some cheap as chips Laos rice baskets at the next available market and you're all welcome round for some sticky fun in 2007 :)

Making sticky rice:

First you need to buy some glutinous or sweet rice. Thats probably the tricky part, but I'm sure that Taj in Brighton would sell it and maybe some supermarkets?
No other rice will do, so don't bother otherwise.

Soak the rice in water for 4 hours.

Then steam it for 1/2 hour and whallah, sticky rice :)

Actually it might even be a bit more technical than that, so heres some websites that tell you more detail and to remind me when I get home.

Import food.com
AsiaRecipe.com
Thaifoodandtravel.com