INGREDIENTS

INSTRUCTIONS

This is a paste for a green curry, and the 'wan' indicates that it
should be slightly sweet as well as hot. If you can't get prik ki nu,
you can use half a pound of habanero chilis or one pound of jalapena
chilis. If you use the latter deseed them before use. Note that if  you
use a substitute you will get a different volume of paste, and  that
you will need to use different amounts in subsequent recipes. If  you
can't get kha use ginger if you can't get bai makroot use lime  zest if
you can't get coriander root, use coriander leaves.  coarsely chop the
chilis. Toast the dry seeds in a heavy iron skillet  or wok, and grind
them coarsely. Add all the ingredients to a food  processor and process
to a smooth paste. Place in tightly stoppered  jars, and keep in the
fridge for at least a week for the flavors to  combine and develop
before use. The remaining three pastes are all  made from dried red
chilis: those sold in Thailand are frankly stale.  Those sold in Europe
and America are generally barely fit for human  consumption. If you
must use them then break them up and shake out  the seeds, and soak
them in tepid water for about 30 minutes before  use. Preferably dry
fresh red chilis. All these recipes call for one  cup of fresh red
chilis, or half a pound of red habaneros, or one  pound of red
jalapenas, deseeded. Dry them in the sun, or if the  climate doesn't
allow then dry them in a herb desicator, or smoke  them in a smoker or
over a barbeque. The dried chilis (which need not  be tinder dry - it
is enough to remove most of the water) are then  toasted under a
broiler until almost burnt. Treat this stage with  extreme caution: if
you overcook them a noxious gas closely related  to Mustard gas is
released. This is quite dangerous at a minimum cook  them in a very
well ventillated room with a fan on and have a damp  cloth ready to
cover your mouth and nose in case of emergencies --  and disconnect
your smoke detector/fire alarm! Thai 'curries' are  typically made
using a 'curry' paste. However that is an  oversimplification: firstly
the word used for these dishes in Thai is  kaeng (pronounced 'gang')
and it covers soups, stews and of course  curries. A paste which is
used could be used just as well for a soup  as for a curry. Secondly of
course it is not true that Thais call  them curry: the word for curry
is kari and it is only applied to a  small number of dishes: the dishes
that appear on western Thai  restaurant menues as 'curries' are kaengs,
and they are made not with  curry paste but with a sauce made from prik
kaeng (which in this case  could be translated better as chili paste).
There are many different  prik kaeng in Thai cuisine and from them you
could make a vast number  of different dishes by using different
protein ingredients, and  vegetable ingredients and so on to the extent
that it is said that  most Thai housewives could cook a different kaeng
every day of the  year. However if you know the four basic pastes
listed here, and the  basic techniques from my next posting, you can
make a vast array of  dishes, if not perhaps quite one per day for a
year. A rough rule of  thumb is that one cup of raw chilis yields a cup
or so of paste  (since there is air in the chilis). Further it will
keep about 3  months in a preserving jar in the fridge. Since the
average kaeng  will require (depending on how hot you make it) between
2 and 8  tablespoons of paste, and since there are roughly 16
tablespoons in a  cup, you can scale this recipe up to suit your needs.
Suffice it to  say that we make these pastes on a cycle over 8 weeks
and make 6-8  portions of each of them. As they say in US motor
advertisements:  your mileage may vary!  Colonel Ian F.
Khuntilanont-Philpott Systems Engineering,  Vongchavalitkul University,
Korat 30000, Thailand  From Gemini's MASSIVE MealMaster collection at
www.synapse.com/~gemini

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Nutrition (calculated from recipe ingredients)
----------------------------------------------
Calories: 232
Calories From Fat: 20
Total Fat: 2.4g
Cholesterol: 0mg
Sodium: 705.4mg
Potassium: 1475.6mg
Carbohydrates: 51.8g
Fiber: 9.7g
Sugar: 11.2g
Protein: 9.6g