Thai Green Curry Paste

Here's something tasty and satisfying for you to make over this Easter weekend. You can use it in this recipe and I've just realised I haven't posted my standard green curry recipe yet so I'll do that for next week and link it here.

So, curry pastes. They're so much easier to buy, right? Wrong. If you have a food processor (I have this mini Cuisinart one, that's great and under £25, (or it was when I got one for me and then one for my mum) it's currently £35 but still worth it, then it's so easy. All you have to do is buy the ingredients and shove them in the food processor before pressing the button with one hand and trying to cover your ears with the other! It's a noisy beast but small and useful and relatively inexpensive. I use mine for pesto and curry pastes mainly, and blitzing breadcrumbs. It is more expensive to make homemade curry pastes but, as with most things, tastes so much better. For the first time, I could see why it was called a green curry (and it wasn't because food dye had been added!).

All of the ingredients!

I took the basic recipe from one off the BBC food website because it seemed like it had the most simple list of ingredients even though some ingredients, like coriander roots still aren't possible to find in supermarkets, so I just leave them out. Also the chillies recommended don't give the dish any heat so you have to add more and more paste to the dish until it really is too expensive to make. In order to change this you just need to use birds eye chillies instead of medium sized chillies.

Thai Green Curry Paste Recipe

Makes enough paste for 8 people - just freeze the leftovers in a small kilner jar. If you use a liquid chalk marker on your storage containers then it'll stay put in the freezer and then washes off in the dishwasher ready for its next use

Ingredients

2 shallots

2 garlic cloves

Small pack of fresh coriander

2 pieces of lemongrass (Waitrose sells fresh lemongrass but dried works fine and is what I often use)

1 inch piece of fresh ginger, peeled with a spoon (it genuinely works!)

1tbsp coriander seeds

1tsp cumin seeds

1tsp black peppercorns

Juice and zest of 1 lime

8 kaffir lime leaves

4 green birds eye chillies (6 if you like it really quite spicy)

2tbsp galangal paste ONLY IF YOU CAN GET IT, I buy mine from Waitrose but there's no issue if you can't get it

2tsp fish sauce or soy sauce

3tbsp olive oil

Method

Chuck everything into the mini food processor (it'll just all fit in the cuisinart), with the seeds and peppercorns going in first for a quick grind, then in goes the rest.

Press the chop or grind button (I alternate) in short bursts (so it doesn't overheat) until everything is blended together, scraping down the sides as needed.

Transfer to a jar (preferably sterilised but I don't always bother) (BBC food says: heat oven to 140C/120C fan/gas 1. Wash the jars in hot, soapy water, then rinse well. Place the jars on a baking sheet and put them in the oven to dry completely. If using Kilner jars, boil the rubber seals, as dry heat damages them)