Thai Red Curry Paste

This recipe is adapted from one in the (now, sadly, defunct) BBC Vegetarian Good Food magazine. The original recipe used 8 large dried red chillies - I use fresh ones instead. 2 medium chillies gives a medium-hot paste; add more to taste! Please note that this recipe includes a number of substitutions for the ingredients that would traditionally be used in Thailand, and so the flavour will be somewhat different (see this article on the She Simmers blog for an opinion on the subject). However, I feel this recipe is still worthwhile, since while bought Thai curry pastes may use all the right ingredients, they are not generally vegan.

Makes 125ml (1/2 cup, 8 tbsp)

• 2 or more fresh red chillies, deseeded and chopped
• 5 garlic cloves, chopped
• 2 stalks fresh lemongrass, chopped
• bottom stems from a large bunch of fresh coriander (cilantro), chopped (original recipe used 3 coriander (cilantro) roots)
• 1 x 1-inch (2.5 cm) cube fresh ginger or galangal, chopped
• 1 large shallot or equivalent onion, chopped
• peel of 1 lime (original used 1 tbsp chopped Kaffir lime peel)
• 1 tsp salt
• 2 tsp coriander seeds
• 1 tsp white or black peppercorns

1. Chop the chillies, garlic, lemongrass, coriander stems, ginger and shallot or onion.

2. Prepare the lime peel by removing as much of the white pith as possible (lay it outside down and slice the pith off with a sharp knife held horizontally) and then chopping.

3. Place all ingredients in the blender and whizz to a fairly smooth paste. The raw ingredients come to about 1 cup (225ml, 8fl oz), so it's enough to put in most small blenders.

4. Store in a screw-topped jar in the fridge. I've kept it for a week or more.

Kake's (Vegan) Cookery Site - http://www.earth.li/~kake/cookery/
This page added 7 Sep 1998 (last altered 4 Jul 2010) - comments and questions to Kake L Pugh (kake@earth.li).