I was hooked by Thai cuisine within seconds of my first frangrance-filled mouthful in Phuket during an overnight stop-off en route to Krabi on my first trip to Thailand. The surprising and tastebud-seducing mix of flavours seemed like the culinary equivalent of walking through a garden brimming with a retina hurting explosion of different, vibrantly coloured blooms.
My second taste had me hiccuping like I was going for a Guinness World Record but that’s another story.
I was smitten by Thai green curry – it was hiccup inducing hot, yet possessed subtle flavours that transcended the spiciness. Since then I’ve been a green curry (Kaeng Keow Wan) man and various reccies into red and yellow Thai curry land have never tempted me to swap colours.
We like to recreate dishes that rob us of all alphabet letters except ‘M’ and Thai green curry is one such delight. It’s relatively easy and quick to make even if you’re not exactly Ferran Adría. The only problem can be with being able to get hold of all the authentic ingredients.
We’ve found a couple of ways around this that means we can still enjoy a pretty authentic tasting Thai green curry even if we’re not in a major modern city, where you can pick up just about any ingredient, or in the land of smiles itself.
The preparation time is around 10 mins with about the same for actually cooking time.
Ingredients for Thai Green Curry with Fish for Two Thai Food-Starved People
- A fillet of firm boneless white fish cut into chunks. We use panga – it’s cheap, doesn’t have a strong flavour and absorbs the flavour of the sauce wonderfully. Prawns work very well too.
- 1 small aubergine chopped into ½ inch chunks
- 200 ml of coconut milk
- 200 ml of vegetable stock
- 200g tin of straw mushrooms (we use small button mushrooms as we can’t get hold of straw ones)
- Quarter of a medium green pepper sliced into matchstick sized batons
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 tbsp fish sauce (try soy sauce you can’t get Thai fish sauce)
- 1 tablespoon sugar
- 2 tbsp green curry paste (see our sizzling green curry paste recipe)
- 1 inch piece of galangal, ( We can rarely get hold of galangal, so nearly always end up using a one inch piece of ginger, peeled and sliced into thin batons)
Preparation for Thai Green Curry with Fish
Cooking Thai green curry with fish is easy peasy lemon squeezy. Once everything is prepared it’s a case of lobbing everything into a saucepan and stirring gently now and again for a few minutes.
But before you start, it’s vitally important to crack open a Singha beer – if you can get hold of one – to get into that mellow Thai state of mind.
1. Heat the coconut milk with the green curry paste in a large frying pan, stirring until they amalgamate fully and the sauce takes on an grassy and creamy lime green colour.
2. Add stock, aubergine, sugar, mushrooms, ginger (galangal if you’re lucky), fish sauce (soy) and salt.
3. Bring the sauce to the boil and cook for a couple of minutes, stirring every now and again.
4. Add the green pepper and the chunks of fish and continue to cook for another four minutes until the fish is has completely lost it’s opaqueness.
And that’s it. An authentic-ish taste of Thailand wherever you are (within reason). Serve it with basmati rice… and reward your culinary efforts with another bottle of Singha beer.
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