Truly Scrumptious

Thai Green Prawn Curry

You can make this curry with chicken if you prefer, but I happened to be near a really good fishmonger and bought some amazing jumbo tiger prawns. My recipe makes enough to feed two, but you can double it up to feed four or five. If you can’t get Thai eggplants, you can use Lebanese baby ones. I put onion and red capsicum in mine, which is not very authentic but hey more veggies can’t be bad. You can add anything you like to be honest, broccoli, mushrooms, snow peas, carrot etc.

Ingredients:

Half a quantity of Thai Green curry paste (see previous post). If using store bought, check the instructions, but about three generous tablespoons should be about right. Seriously, the home made paste is well worth the effort.
1 x 400ml can of premium coconut milk (I use TCC brand because there’s no thickener like guar in it)
Half a big juicy lime
A handful of fresh coriander leaves
1 tablespoon of fish sauce
1 tablespoon of palm sugar (brown sugar is fine if you can’t get palm sugar)
A handful of Thai holy basil (if you can’t get it use Italian basil)
Half a teaspoon of vegetable stock powder
Half an onion in chunks or diced
Thai eggplants either the pea ones or round egg sized ones, or a baby Lebanese eggplant, cut into chunks
Half a small red capsicum cut into chunks
About 300-400g of raw tiger prawns in their shell, peeled, halved lengthways, poop tube removed, rinsed (preferably use jumbo tiger prawns and remember that if you buy them in the shell, you lose about 50% of the weight when you peel them, so 200g in the shell is equivalent to 100g peeled and prepared prawn meat.)

1. Pour about a third of the coconut milk into a wide pan and heat until it bubbles. Thicken the coconut milk for a while (takes about 4-5 minutes).
2. Make sure you have some rice cooking so that it will be ready when the curry is ready.
3. Add the curry paste and mix well. Cook for five minutes.
4. Now add the veg in order of hardness (e.g. carrots will take longer than snow peas). Onion, capsicum and eggplant all take around the same time, so you can add them together.
5. Add the stock powder, fish sauce, and palm sugar.
6. Once the veggies are almost cooked, add the prawns and cook for 3-5 minutes until they start to go opaque.
7. Add the lime juice and Thai basil.
8. Taste the sauce, adjust the seasonings – if too hot add more sugar, if it needs salt, add a dash more fish sauce.
9. Serve over rice and garnish with coriander leaves. If you like it hotter, add some sliced fresh chilli.