Thai Style Green Curry with Homemade Curry Paste
Thai Style Green Curry is a delicious dinner/lunch that can be made in bulk and enjoyed during the rest of the week. Make it from scratch with my easy Green Curry Paste for a very flavorful meal. Top it onto a bowl of quinoa for a lighter meal.
Under a leaky canopy, strung with Christmas lights and Thai-pop music echoing in the background, a thunder bolt escapes the night sky and lands somewhere in the dark abyss off the coast of Thailand. And then, a second later, a downpour. With eyes mesmorized by lightening sparks dancing amongst the ocean waves, I catch a shadow from the corner of my eye. It's the bubbly bartender headed our way, with a grin so wide it matches ours - that is, a grin of foreigners who have never experienced a thunderstorm quite like this before. With heavy hands, balancing an array of Thai plates and bottles of Singha, he leaves us with our food and makes his way a few steps down to the beach. I, too, look towards the ocean for a final glimpse of the dimming light show and then turn back to the food. The aroma - sweet yet spicy, citrusy yet earthy - made it impossible to focus on anything else. For the first time, I had a truly traditional Thai curry within arms reach. And it disappeared just as the thunderstorm did - quickly and intensely.
And now I am back home, two years later, craving that curry. So in attempts to rewrite the night, I spent the weekend making a huge mess in the kitchen, trying to mimic that curry. Come Sunday, I knew I'd never have such curry again, but, I had this one…A very, very delicious green curry - slightly sweet with a touch of spice, and loads of veggies atop of bed of quinoa.
I will most likely never witness a thunderstorm of that beauty and magnitude, but I will now eat with a grin just as wide any night I crave a great Thai green curry. And I hope you do too...
Enjoy,
xx Marie
** So I know that this recipe seems like a lot of ingredients but I minimized the Green Curry Paste ingredients to ones that you can find at your local grocery store (aside from the lemongrass - substitute for lemon zest if you can't find it). For the curry portion, feel free to use any vegetables you have in your refrigerator. Have fun!**
Serves: 4-6
Prep Time: 20 minutes | Cook Time: 20 minutes
Ingredients for the Green Curry Paste:
- 2 tablespoons of the stem of the fresh cilantro
- 2 small handfuls of fresh cilantro leaves
- 6 cloves of garlic
- 1 tablespoon powdered coriander
- 1/2 tablespoon powdered cumin
- 1 inch nob of ginger (without its skin)
- juice of 1 lime
- 1 lemongrass stalk (or lemon zest)
- 1/2 cup shallots or white onion
- 1 teaspoon chili flakes
- sea salt
Ingredients for the Green Curry:
- 1 tablespoon coconut oil
- 1 cup green beans (cut in half)
- 1 large bell pepper (cut into thin strips)
- 1 Japanese eggplant or half of a very large eggplant ( cut into bite-size cubes)
- 2 carrots (cut into thin circles)
- 1 small onion (diced)
- 1 cup of mushrooms (thinly sliced)
- 2 tablespoons coconut sugar
- 1 can full-fat coconut milk
- 1 cup water
- 2-3 tablespoons curry paste (see above)
- sea salt
- juice of 1 lime
+ serve with brown rice or quinoa
Instructions:
Start by making the curry paste by simply blending everything into the food processor until it's well mixed and ground down into a paste (see above photo).
Now for the curry - on medium/high heat warm the coconut oil and onions for 5 minutes. Then add all the vegetables, coconut sugar, curry paste and 1/4 cup water and let this simmer with the cover on for about 10 minutes. Add more water gradually so that the veggies don't burn. Once the veggies have cooked down, add the coconut milk and 1 cup water, and cook for another 10 minutes until the veggies are fully cooked. Stir in the fresh lime juice, extra cilantro leaves and, top over brown rice or quinoa!
Your Thoughts?
Have you tried making green curry paste before? It's actually pretty simple. And I've minimized the more traditional ingredients so that we could all be able to find the majority of these ingredients at our local grocery store.
I also love seeing your take on any of the recipes from the blog so don't forget to tag me on Instagram - #8thandlake - so I can see your creations!
You can also find me on Snapchat with more photos and clips of my everyday life - username - marie8thandlake and on Pinterest - to see what my dream reality would look like ;)
Lots of love from the west coast,
xx Marie