Sawaddee ka welcome to hot Thai Kitchen today's video is another one of my series on Thai
ingredients 101 so if you want to check out the rest of the series up with a link down below but
today we are going to talk about one of the staple ingredients you can find in any Thai kitchen and
that is curry paste it's also something I get a lot of questions about so hopefully we will
tackle them all today let's get started what do we mean by curry paste in the context of Thai cuisine
well it's basically just a mixture of herbs and spices and it's usually spicy at least a little
bit now at the store you can find pre-made curry paste but usually people can only find red green
and yellow curry paste but really there are endless variations of curry paste and yes you
can actually make up your own blend and people freestyle curry paste at home all the time and
they will often think that curry pastes are these long complex recipes with lots of ingredients but
they can actually be really simple for example a Thai sour curry or gangue sub only has like
five things in the ingredient list and you can check out the video I'll put the link right up
here now what is in a curry paste so even though there are no official rules about what has to be
in a curry paste there are things that show up a lot so I'm gonna call these the fantastic four of
curry paste these are four ingredients that are there in almost all types of curry paste those
are chilies garlic shallots and shrimp paste and then lemongrass and galangal do show up a lot as
well and apart from that you can add any number of herbs and spices like cilantro roots kaffir
limes as cumin coriander tumeric anything you want let me go on the record saying this that
there's absolutely no shame in buying store-bought creepies you go to Thailand to any markets you're
gonna see pre-made curry paste sold by bucket loads so Thai people buy them all the time cuz
it's a lot of work to make curry paste right but I think that if you're really interested in Thai
cuisine it's a great experience to do at least once because you really get to witness sort of the
transformation of all the different ingredients and you understand where the flavours come from
so it's a great project I recommend so if you want to make it for the experience of it I recommend
going old school with a mortar and pestle because it sort of allows you to witness the aromas that
keep changing as you add more stuff it's really kind of a cool experience but you want a heavy
duty big stone mortar and pestle like this not a cute little marble one because that will take you
forever okay now if you want speed you've seen me in most of my recent videos I like to use a
combination of coffee grinder like this which I use for my dry stuff because it gets it nice and
powdery and then from my wet stop my moist herbs I use an immersion blender and the reason why an
immersion blender works well is because you don't need to add a lot of liquid you don't need to add
any liquid at all in order to get it going and you can do small amounts you don't have to do a
large batch now if you're interested in the model that I use and recommend I have it listed in my
kit I'll put the link right down below so a jug blender like this can work however you probably
need to add a little more liquid to make it work but depending on the recipe you may not want that
liquid like if you're doing fish cakes for example that added liquid it's gonna make the fish cakes
too soft you don't want it also you might need to make a double batch because otherwise there's
not enough stuff for it to work so you know kind of depends on what you're doing food processors
can work I find they don't get the stuff quite as fine as blenders or Morton's pestle but if you're
working with a recipe that doesn't need the pace to be that fine then it could work for you now if
you're gonna buy curry paste at the store how do you choose a good brand now unfortunately when it
comes to curry paste the only way to know is to try like reading the ingredient list isn't going
to help you out all that much okay but when you do try it there are four things you want to think
about first is spiciness unfortunately spiciness and flavor are tied together when it comes to
curry paste so if you buy a pace that's too spicy for you in order to cut that down you have to use
less paste and then by default you're out also cutting down on the rest of the other herbs and
spices as well so that's not ideal so it's better if you buy a paste has just the right amount of
spiciness or have less spiciness and then you can add more paste or add more chilies to the recipe
second thing is saltiness some curry pastes are really salty and others are not very much so if
salt level is something you're worried about you can check the sodium content and the nutritional
value thingy at the back but make sure you're comparing the same serving size okay cuz sometimes
serving size is like a tablespoon another brand it might be two teaspoons so you got to do a little
bit of math before you make your decision third thing shrimp paste as I said before shrimp paste
very common ingredients in curry paste however a lot of commercial brands omit it so that if
you're vegetarian or you're allergic to shellfish you can still use it okay so if that's you make
sure you read the ingredient list before you buy and if you want shrimp paste but your curry paste
doesn't have it you can just add it to the curry easy-peasy finally flavor obviously flavors are
gonna vary between brands if you try something you don't like don't write off the whole category
of green curry it might just be a brand that you don't like so for me because I know you're gonna
ask the one that I like is this one right here and fYI this is not sponsored I'm just telling
you what I use I like this one because it's got a really good flavor however it is spicier and
saltier than many other brands so for you that might not work some other stuff also has shrimp
paste like this one does yellow one there yellow doesn't so you just have to check the ingredient
list I also like ones that come in individual packs like this because then I don't have to
deal with leftovers like this massive tub is like far too much for me if I need to use a
red curry that is vegetarian I like to go with the one in the tin also this is spicier than a
lot of other brands so it may not work for you so you just have to try things out and see what hits
the spot for you let's talk storage if you've got leftover curry paste and this applies to
whether you make it or you buy it okay freeze it that's it plain and simple put it in a freezer
bag press it down so it's nice and flat so it's easy to thaw and press all the air out
it'll last in your freezer for several months if however you've got plans to use it within
one week it will be okay in the fridge but if you got no plans for it straight in the freezer using
curry pays now most people think well if I have curry paste of course I'm gonna make a curry but
there are so many other things you can do with it so much so that I am making another video talking
about different ways that you can use the curry paste so make sure you stay tuned for that and
when it is up I will put the link right up here and that is it I hope that answered most of the
questions that you had about curry paste if you have more questions about it definitely you can
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