There’s nothing to be afraid of when making your own curry paste. To me, the best pastes are made by mortar and pestle because both chemically and emotionally food processors can’t compete with the fine work of our hands. This recipe however is all about making things super speedy, so for what we lose from using a machine, we gain in getting food on the table just that little quicker, and food for our hungry and tired end-of-the-day state. That’s gotta be worth quite a bit too.

Thai Green Curry Paste

You will need:
2 stalks lemongrass, sliced roughly
a thumb of galangal, peeled and roughly chopped
5-6 small red shallots, peeled
2-3 cloves of garlic, peeled
1/2 a lime
3 green chillies (the large ones)
a bunch of coriander
1 tbsp palm sugar, raw sugar, or brown sugar
3 tbsp fish sauce
1/2 tsp ground white pepper
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp ground coriander seeds
a dash of coconut milk (only if you have trouble blending)
1 tbsp shrimp paste

Start by pulsing the lemongrass and galangal in your food processor. These are the toughest ingredients. Add the shallots, garlic, and chillies, then pulse until everything is really finely chopped. Add shrimp paste, cumin, coriander seeds, white pepper, fish sauce, palm sugar, and squeeze the lime into the food processor. Pulse more until everything combines into a paste. This will take a few minutes, if your processor is having trouble combining all of the ingredients, add a really small dash of coconut milk to loosen things up. Roughly chop your coriander, leaving out the very tips where the roots are. Pulse further until paste like. Store in a sterilised jar for up to a week, or use to make a curry straight away.

Stay tuned next week for PTJ’s beef and okra green curry recipe.