Thursday - April 03, 2008
Currying favor
A little update on The Great Homemade Thai Food Experiment
Nothing beats cooking from scratch. That’s what I’m learning here. I made a large batch of Masaman curry the other day, using the premier brand of imported curry paste. It turned out mediocre. After eating my way through that for 3 days, I made a small batch of green curry, using the Taste of Thailand curry paste. The recipe called for 1 Tbs of paste. I used the entire pouch, roughly 8 times as much. The result was just barely rich enough to be in the same boat as the curry I get in my favorite Thai restaurant. You live, you learn.
Some things I’ve learned
- Not all coconut milk is the same. Look for the words “first pressing” on the label, or compare brands and take the one with the highest fat content. Second or third pressing brands have almost none of the thick fat, called coconut cream, and this is where the flavor lives. Yeah, it’s all transfat and therefore evil, but so what? It tastes better.
- You need to “wake up” the curry paste by frying it in a spoonful of oil for a couple minutes. Then you add the coconut milk. But be smart, and put the coconut milk in an unheated pan and add the hot paste to it (like adding acid to the water in chemistry class). Adding the milk to the hot pan you fry the curry in causes it to instantly curdle, which makes your sauce ugly.
- If you can read the label you don’t want it: most non-imported Thai food products are really watered down. You want the good stuff, so you’ll have to go to an Asian grocery to find it, and it will be labeled mostly in Foreign.
- Fresh fresh fresh! The best Thai curry pastes are made right on the spot. The canned stuff gets weak with age. If you can find the fresh peppers save some seeds and grow your own for next time.
- Slice the meat thinly and let it marinade overnight in the curry sauce. Coconut milk is a good tenderizer, and the flavors seep into the meat. So things taste better.
- Instant Rice is an abomination. Rice has to be the easiest stuff on Earth to cook. Take X amount of water, add a few shakes of salt and a small splash of oil. Boil it. Add x/2 amount of rice. Stir it around for about 2 minutes until the starch foam goes away. Take pot off heat, cover, let sit. Come back in 30 minutes and the rice is perfect, every time.
- Find a proper Thai cookbook and make your own curry. Go back to the Asian grocery store and buy bags of chilis and all the other strange ingredients. Make a small amount and adjust it to taste. Then make a big batch and freeze it. It will last forever, and not fade out like the canned products.
- Asian grocery stores are the place to buy spices. Especially in bulk. You don’t get a fancy glass bottle, but you get a super low price.
I wouldn’t say I’ve mastered either of these curries yet, but I’m getting better. Maybe I’ll try something Indian next.
UPDATE !!
Posted by Drew458 on 04/03/2008 at 11:47 AM
Filed Under: • Miscellaneous •
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