Thai Curry Pastes for Leftovers

Thai curry paste is your friend and ally in the war on wasting food.  It can be used to make almost anything (meat, fish or vegetables) into a gourmet delight and total preparation and cooking time is less than ¼ hour.  These can be bought in plastic tubs which have the past sealed in a plastic bag inside and these tubs contain more than enough to make 2 or 3 curries unless you like your food suicidally hot.  They also come in sachets and tubes like toothpaste, but trust me, the tub kind taste better!  You can get them in almost all supermarkets, but better are the strange and wonderful looking ones in Chinese supermarkets.  Recipes vary, of course, but the basics are more or less the same across the board.

The main types are:

Red Curry Paste

This has a wonderful inviting colour and delicious warm flavor and involves red chillis, galangal, shallots, garlic, lemon grass, coriander, shrimp paste and lime leaves – Hot

Green Curry Paste

Much the same, But with green chillis – Hot

Yellow Curry Paste

Much the same but with turmeric which gives it that gorgeous earthy colour and sometimes yellow chillis – Hot to medium

Massam Curry Paste

Lots of ground spices in with the usual suspects – delicious and fragrant and not too hot at all.

Phanaeng Curry Paste

Mild and slightly more unusual

The beauty of these pastes is that you can add as much or as little as you like and when cooking a curry, coconut milk will help temper it.

You can also enjoy adding your own flavours to the curry to enhance it – like your own garlic and ginger, or fish sauce, lime juice and sugar to get that authentic hot, sweet, sour flavouring.

Recipe to follow for the fearful or uninitiated!