Thai Green Fish Curry
I planned to cook fish today, Thai Green Fish Curry. I looked through the internet to find a recipe for which I had all the ingredients. I disregarded many websites, most of which used the ready made Thai green curry paste and some which had additional ingredients that we could do without which I think after all is done would not add much to the taste as I was looking for a more 'kampung' flavour rather than exquisite dining.
Well, I came to this website, "thaigreencurryrecipe.com" which had listed 5 green curry recipes, one of them being the one I was looking for. Hmmm ... I had already seen this recipe being listed on another website, "foodreference.com'. Don't know where it originated from but it seems easy enough (meaning I had like, 90% of the ingredients).
Basically, like all curries, there is the usual:
1 onion (big, medium or small? I went for medium)
3 garlic cloves (no problem here)
6 small hot green chilli deseeded and sliced (for extra extra hot, I threw in more than was required, we are gonna be smoking for lunch - seeds included)
5 cm fresh ginger scraped and sliced (this was a problem ... 5 cm??? well, if I had a really fat ginger, how would that be measured??? anyway, to your discretion, don't want to have a ginger curry paste now, would we? I decided to go with a 2 by 4)
1 tsp ground white pepper
1 tsp ground coriander
1/2 tsp ground cumin
1/2 tsp ground tumeric
1 tsp shrimp paste (aka belacan. I had a chunk of belacan which I believe is a few years old 
.... and it has become quite hard to break up so I don't know if I want to break a small piece off, roast it and pound it to powder ... hmmm ... was planning to use the Sambal Belachan Powder by Singlong which had red chilli included ... let's be a bit more industrious and try the belacan)
1 tbsp fish sauce
1 stalk of lemon grass peeled and sliced thinly (I sliced up the bottom part and smashed the top half to add to the curry and just in case there wasn't enough, I added another stalk)
Blend the above ingredients together. I added in a little bit of coconut milk to help with the blending.
1 tbsp of peanut oil
400ml coconut milk
1 tbsp fresh coriander chopped (this is confusing ... I just did a search for fresh coriander and some funny things popped up ... well, in Wikipedia, 'Coriander (Coriandrum sativum) is an annual herb in the family Apiaceae. It is also known as Chinese parsley or, particularly in the Americas, cilantro'. Surprisingly, some people think that they are different, or aren't they?)
Instructions weren't clear and arrangement of items were not right. You have to actually read the whole recipe and reconstruct it. Originally, fish, chopped coriander, coconut milk and peanut oil were placed under the spice paste heading and one would think, "why would I blend the fish along with the others??" I very nearly emptied all my coconut milk into it.
The next instructions were:
1. Put the oil in a wok and heat well. Add the spice paste and stir fry for a few seconds to release the aromas. Add the thick portion from the top of the coconut milk, stir well and boil to thicken a little.
2. Add the fish and turn the pieces over in the sauce until they are well coated. Reheat (reheat??? hasn't it been on the fire still?) to simmering point and cook until they start to become opaque for about two minutes.
4. Add the remaining coconut milk (seems like quite a lot) and chopped coriander and continue cooking until the fish is ready. Serve topped with Thai basil plus the halved limes and fragrant Thai rice or noodles.
Am now frying the blended ingredients in the wok. Hmmm ... smells good. I also put in the smashed top half of the lemon grass. It tastes hot!
I added in more fish sauce according to my taste at the end.
To Serve:
• sprigs of Thai basil
• 2 limes, quartered
• fragrant Thai rice or noodles
I didn't have any Thai basil or limes so had none of that.
Lunch is served ...
