So I really like Thai Green Curry. Most cities I go to I will attempt to find a Thai restaurant and ask them if their green curry has onions or shallots in it. If I can eat it I'll stay and try it. Sadly, a lot of the time curry paste will have shallots or scallions as part of the base so I leave the restaurant sad...and then have to go for one of my usual, safer choices - Pasta, Pizza, Burgers or Steak? Although Burgers are hit and miss too!
Eating out regularly can be expensive so I am always on the look out for new onion free sauces/curries/mixes - especially Thai curries.
Earlier this week I went into a world foods market in Brighton (Currently no link) and they had this MAE PLOY paste:
I checked the back for the ingredients and sure enough - ONION FREE!!!!
Today was now Thai Green Curry day!
I bought the usual suspects for my curry prep: Carrots, aubergine (eggplant), green beans, baby corn, bamboo shoots, coconut milk, a red chilli and chicken (I'm not a vegetarian), garlic and ginger.
I prepped it - and yes the below picture is how I tend to prep stir-fry and recipes that require adding a lot of ingredients quickly.
Then I basically followed the instructions on the paste pot....simply, cook the chicken first then add the veg! I opted to leave out the garlic and ginger (as I wanted to get a taste of the pure paste) - but what I hadn't realised is that most of the paste was green chillies (obvious if I'd bothered to think about it really - or even retained the ingredients list when I'd read it!) - so the red chilli made it EXTRA hot! Below is a mid cook shot:
Verdict: It's the closest thing so far I've had that tastes almost like that elusive Thai restaurant green curry! It's very close - not 100% heaven, but close enough!
Next time I may tweak the quantities so I am not tasting it through a scoville rating that (for me) was pretty high. But ultimately I think I'll be making the switch from the Blue Dragon paste I originally found that didn't contain onions.
I think it is also missing the Thai basil which adds a wonderful licorice flavour to the curry - I'm going to look into getting some for next time and I found a youtube link on how to grow it from the fresh leaves (I couldn't find a potted one online for the UK) - so will try this and no doubt blog about it at some point.
If authentic Thai Green Curry is a 10/10. Blue Dragon gets a 5.5/10 and Mae Ploy 7/10
Happy Eating!
LINKS:
Blue Dragon's website - Green curry paste
MAE PLOY - Morrisons - from a quick google I found you could buy the paste online
Fresh Thai Basil - Waitrose - you can order online to get fresh leaves
Youtube - How to plant and grow the sweet Thai basil