thailand's famous Panang curry if you've
always wanted to make this at home then
I have the perfect recipe for you okay
so for this one we're gonna make our
curry paste from scratch and I love
making Thai coppice I think it's one of
the best ways to get to know a lot of
different Thai ingredients and also to
figure out what Thai ingredients your
Asian grocer has down the road so let's
start off with the chilies first now for
most Thai red chili pastes we use the
dried red chilies that's rather than the
fresh so I've had these soaking in some
hot water for about 10 minutes or so
just want to cut them up now I'm gonna
be using a blender today and I've got
lots of little tips and tricks here for
how we can best use the blender to make
a curry paste at home because there's a
few little things that might catch you
up first tip is to chop things up quite
small because that's going to help your
blade get everything really smooth and
then the second thing so this chili
water just keep that for when we go to
blend because we may need to moisten the
mixture to help it get really smooth
you'll see what I mean a little bit
later
now the next ingredient is going girl so
Gallager looks like this similar to
ginger but not it has a very beautiful
pine forest citrusy high note to its
aromas and flavors it's really worth
seeking out and it freezes quite well as
well you'll see that there's a little
bits of pink on here as well it's
another way to tell that that's your
going girl and not ginger now what you
need to do is just peel the going girl
just a small piece and then finely chop
next we want some garlic and then some
red Asian schlotz as well now you can
use French as shallots here too and now
some lemongrass hmmm I love that smell
so much now what we need to do here is
brewed the lemongrass just cut that end
off because it's often very tough and
then peel off these outer layers because
they're also really tough and fibrous
and now finally slice and I also want
some coriander roots so just take those
off now if you're using coriander at
home and you're not using the roots just
stick them in the freezer until you're
ready to make your curry paste that way
you're not wasting any and now for the
kaffir lime element so this should be
one of the crucial flavors for a true to
high Panang curry and what I like to do
is use both the leaves and then also the
fruit itself which is this gnarly
looking guy right yeah so with the
leaves you want to take those off the
stem and then pull the stem out of the
leaf as well roll those up and then
finally slice and then the lime itself
so the lime juice inside of here is
really bitter and I've asked and asked
and asked my mom about what you can use
it for in terms of food now she said
that in her village they don't use it
for food they just use it to put in
their hair funnily enough but anyway I
have not tried it in my hair but you
guys feel free what we need here is the
actual wine peel so you want to get as
much of the peel as possible without too
much of that white stuff underneath
because that will be bitter a little bit
too okay
just need 2 or 3 slices here now just
want a really fine chocolate now I know
this ingredients gonna be a bit hard for
a lot of you to find don't worry if you
can't find the kaffir lime itself and
just use the leaves and just leave that
out but if you can get a hold of these
it really makes a big difference to the
paste and then shrimp paste yes it's
kind of funky smelling but it adds a
beautiful saltiness and background or
mommy flavour to the dish
you don't even know it's there at the
end so just pop it in the paste and
don't worry about it and now for my
dried spices a little bit of coriander
and some cumin and in the last
ingredient you'll find in some recipes
and not others I've
my pace with and without but there's
some peanuts here but if you have
allergies you can totally leave these
out won't make a huge difference now
let's start lending now if we have a
look here this is one of the pitfalls of
using a blender instead of a mortar and
pestle to make your curry paste so have
a look and you can see that what we're
getting here is just a lot of chopped
ingredients we're not getting a paste
we're not releasing or smashing out all
those beautiful essential oils and
flavors and aromas from the ingredients
like you would do in a mortar and pestle
so my tip is to add a little bit of
liquid to this now a lot of people add
oil that doesn't work out quite so well
because for me that then becomes like an
emulsification the oil thickens up the
ingredients thicken up and everything
just becomes a wrong texture so what you
want is some of this chili soaking
liquid a couple of tablespoons first and
because this is just water when we go to
cook it out it will eventually evaporate
and cook out of the paste so don't worry
too much about how much you add and it's
better but I can still see we're just
getting a chop here so I'm gonna add a
little bit more and that's better so
what I can see here is that that blade
is actually catching those ingredients
and they seem to be turning over quicker
and faster exactly what you want to look
out for okay so this is the texture that
you're looking for and this makes enough
for two amounts of panang curry which is
good if you don't want to do all that
chopping just for one dinner share it
out over to and you can just store the
unused curry paste in the freezer now
comes the easiest part and that's the
cooking so I just need a little bit of
oil
[Music]
and half of that curry paste and I want
this kyra paste to sizzle and cook out a
little bit in the oil because the heats
gonna be releasing even more the flavor
and the aroma and then cooking out those
raw aromatics like the garlic and the
shallots all of this contributes to
flavor it's what it's all about
okay so that's had a minute or so it
smells amazing now I'm gonna add in my
chicken and this is chicken thigh you
could use breasts as well but I'm gonna
do this the slow way and it doesn't suit
this style of playing a little bit
better
and now we add the coconut milk and as I
mentioned is a couple of different ways
to do Penang one is really quickly
almost like more like a stir-fry style
and put that one you can use chicken
breasts or bronze or seafood even but
I'm gonna go with the more traditional
slower cooked method here and this one's
really great for tougher cuts of beef or
the chicken thigh and then pop a lid on
turn the heat down and let that simmer
away for half an hour ah okay so this is
smelling so amazing let's have a look
and it's just what we want so this
longer cooked Penang style curry has
that really nice thick sauce and some of
that red oil on the top and just perfect
okay now for the seasoning because of
course we haven't seen this yet with the
fish sauce and palm sugar I like to do
it at the end
I was like to taste first who's got an
idea of how things are going now for the
palm sugar you'll see that it usually
comes in these hard blocks so you just
need to shave that sugar so it dissolves
quickly into the curry and then the fish
sauce as well let's see how we're going
[Music]
almost there to me that style of courage
have a little bit more sweetness than
usual so I'm going to put a little bit
more palm sugar in and now we're
floating in that territory over the
amazing you know the thing that I love
about Thai curries is you bring all
these huge flavors like fish sauce and
galangal and kaffir lime leaves and palm
sugar and chilies and you create
something so harmonious and so beautiful
at the end mmm that is just delicious
now to serve this up dish out the curry
first look at how thick and luscious
that is
[Music]
and then a little drizzle of extra
coconut cream on the top and as I said
at the beginning the kaffir lime leaf
flavor is really important here so once
an extra finely sliced leaves on the top
and just a couple of slices of Chile and
there you go guys a classic Thai Penang
chicken curry one of my favorites I hope
you love it too that flavor so amazing
mmm it's just an explosion of everything
that's wonderful about Thai food
if you've got any comments or questions
pop them below and if you enjoyed the
video why not hit that subscribe button
plus the little Bell one and that way
you'll get notified every time I release
a new video thanks guys
[Music]