Fire! I Have Created Fire!

Thai food lovers, rejoice with me! I have mastered one tiny facet, one infinitesimal corner of the cuisine, successfully understood and reproduced the making of red curry sauce. Oops, suddenly I realize how much more there is to learn about Thai cooking. Oh well. It was a great moment. 

Thaifood.about.com has a recipe for "Thai Red Curry Paste" by Darlene Schmidt, which was where I started. As I've mentioned, I can't completely follow a recipe unless it has leavening.

• 1 shallot or 1/4 purple onion (I used 1 purple onion because 3/4 would stink up the fridge)
• 1 stalk lemongrass, minced (lemongrass is tough and difficult to chop so I used the most tender parts from all the stalks in the bundle, oh well)
• 1-2 red chilis (I used all the red ones in the package, discarding any green or brown chilis)
• 4 cloves garlic
• 1 thumb-sized piece of galangal (I used regular ginger, a piece the size of my fist)
• 2 T tomato puree
• 1 t ground cumin (1/2 tea cumin seeds, pulverized to powder)
• 3/4 t ground coriander (same as the cumin seeds)
• 1/4 t ground white pepper
• 2 T fish sauce (removed top from bottle, cleaned away salt)
• 1 t shrimp sauce
• 1 t brown sugar (plan to try jaggery next time)
• 1 1/2 t chili powder (ooh, chipotle chili powder would be good)
• 3 T coconut milk (shake the can hard to mix before using, add more if too thick)
• 2 T lime juice
• 1/4 t cinnamon

Place all ingredients in a food processor (or blender) and puree well. This will make a thick, strong-smelling paste which will mellow when you cook it. There will be enough for one curry, or in my case, for at least two curries. Heat with a little oil or butter, then add your choice of vegetables and meat. I used shredded leftover chicken, diced carrots, chopped beans, snow peas and spinach; served with steamed rice, sprinkled with chopped cilantro.

The second half of this recipe was heated with oil, vegetables, chicken, rice, broth and more coconut milk to make a thick soup. I like to use green and orange vegetables (broccoli, string beans, peas, snow peas, spinach, carrots, yams). This was very hot and spicy but so good I couldn't stop eating it.