Day 6 – Thai Green Fish Curry

A Thai green curry is much loved throughout the country and has enough heat to clear your blocked sinuses, unblock your runny nose and re-awaken your tired taste buds right when you need it the most. It’s easy enough to buy a prepared curry paste in a jar – the Valcom brands were retailing for $3.13 in my local supermarket recently – but it doesn’t hurt to have a recipe for your own green curry paste.

The benefits of a make from scratch curry paste comes down to one simple factor: Taste. When you use fresh ingredients, and cook with a freshly prepared paste the curry becomes more complex and has greater depth. It may seem like a lot of ingredients, but you can always make double the amount, and either store in a jar in the fridge, or you can freeze the paste in individual ice cube trays of about a tablespoon each, then pop the cubes into a sealed bag for use whenever you want.

It goes without saying that you can adapt this recipe for any meat or vegetables you have to hand, but fish cooks quickly meaning you can do this in the time it takes to steam some rice. Ling is in season now and is perfect for this recipe, or use any other firm fleshed fish.

Serves 4

INGREDIENTS

2 tbsp vegetable oil; 4 tbsp bottled green curry paste (about half a jar) OR all of green curry paste recipe below; 500 ml fish stock (reduced-salt if possible) plus 100ml water; 2 tbsp fish sauce (optional); 2 tbsp palm sugar OR raw sugar; 300 g small waxy potatoes, halved; 1 red capsicum, seeded and cut into strips; 500 g white fish fillets, sliced across into medallions; 100 g small snow or sugarsnap peas (optional); 1/3 cup reduced-fat coconut milk; juice of 1 lime; 1 tablespoon chopped fresh coriander to garnish
Green curry paste: 2 tbsp finely grated fresh galangal; 2 tsp finely chopped lemongrass (white part only); 4 kaffir lime leaves, shredded; 6 tbsp finely chopped fresh coriander; 6 shallots*, very finely chopped; 4 garlic cloves, crushed; 1 tsp ground coriander; 1 tsp ground cumin; 1 small red chilli, seeded and finely chopped; finely grated rind of 1 lime

METHOD

Green curry paste: Mix together all the ingredients for the green curry paste and stir in 6 tablespoons water. (If you have a food processor, you can save chopping time by using the machine to blend all the paste ingredients with the water until smooth.)

Curry: Heat the oil in a nonstick pan. Add the curry paste and fry for 5 minutes, stirring frequently, until the water has evaporated and the shallots have softened and are starting to colour.
Add the fish stock, water and fish sauce, if using, into a heavy based saucepan or wok and stir in the sugar, potatoes and red capsicum. Bring to the boil, then cover, reduce heat and simmer gently for about 10 minutes or until the potatoes are almost tender.

Add the fish, snow or sugarsnap peas and coconut milk, then cover again and cook gently for 5 minutes or until the fish flakes easily. Remove from the heat, stir in the lime juice and scatter over the coriander to garnish. Serve hot with steamed rice.

COST

$10.00 for four people