Thai Red Curry (Vegetarian & Non Vegetarian)

Bright aromatic red curry is conventionally the strongest of  curries in Thai cuisine, while green curry is usually considered the mildest.  Like any other Thai dish, perfect balance between the sweet-sour-spicy taste is the only secret to an irresistibly tasty dish. 

With the ease of  availability of all kinds of curry pastes nowadays, it's pretty easy to make a decent Thai dish. But it's a different magic watching the bright, bubbling, fiery, red curry simmering on your stove, while the jasmine rice steams in the background. 

You need:

For the paste: 

Dried Thai Red Chilies – 7-8 or to taste

Galangal – 1/2  heaping Tbsp (Replace with ginger if not available.  But galangal does make a difference)
Shallots – 1/4 cup, chopped (use frozen if you don't have fresh)

Lemon Grass – 1.5 heaping Tbsp (finely chopped)

Cilantro Stems – 1 Tbsp (don't use leaves, only the stems)

Garlic – 3-4 cloves chopped

Thai Red Chilies – to taste (optional)

Kaffir Lime Leaves – 4 to 5 (Lime peel can be substituted but a huge huge difference in taste)

Whole White Peppercorns – 1/2 tsp (black can be substituted)

Salt – 1/2 tsp or to taste

Paprika – as needed and optional for red color

Oil – 2 Tbsp

* Zesty lemongrass and aromatic kaffir lime leaves are irreplaceable parts of Thai curries. And anyone asking you to substitute it with something else, is perhaps kidding with you! :)

For the curry:

Cut vegetable chunks of eggplant, carrot, onions

Shrimps/ Prawns

Kaffir Lime leaves

Lemon grass 

Lime juice - 1/2 tsp

Fish sauce (can replace with light soy sauce, but fish sauce does add to the real  flavor)

Palm Sugar/ Jaggery/ Sugar - 1 tsp

Thai basil - 3-4 leaves

Oil - 1 tsp

Salt - To taste

Preparing the paste:

1. Soak de-seeded dried red chilies in 1/3 cup hot water for 20 min. Remove the soaked chilies from the water and place them along with all of the remaining ingredients in a blender or spice grinder. 
2. Grind all of the ingredients into a smooth paste.
3. Heat oil in a pan and fry the paste. Cook until the oil starts to separate and the paste starts to clump together . This should not take more than 6-7 min. If you feel, the red color is not intense, add paprika and mix on a very low flame for 1 min.
4. Remove from the heat and allow the paste to cool down. 
5. Store it in a clean airtight jar. You can store unused paste to use it in future. You can refrigerate up to 1 month  and keep it frozen for unto 6 months. 

Preparing the curry:

1. Heat oil in a heavy bottom pan, add lime leaves and lemon grass. Stir fry for 15-20 sec. 
2. Add the shrimps or chicken or both (skip for vegetarian curry), all the vegetable and 2 Tbsp red curry paste. Stir for another 1 min. 
3. Add half of a 14 Oz. coconut milk can, fish sauce, lime juice. 
4. Add 1 tsp of Palm Sugar/ Jaggery/ Sugar. Mix well
5. At this stage you can give it a taste and adjust the curry paste and coconut milk to get a balanced spicy-sweet taste.
6. Adjust salt if required.  Boil for 1-2 min. Don't boil too much else coconut milk will curdle and lose the taste and smooth texture of the curry
7. Add 2-3 basil leaves roughly torn. 
8. Serve hot with steamed rice.

*Lemon grass - use from the root till the point where it is soft and juicy. Only this part has all the flavor, discard the rest. 

**Reserve the water used for soaking chilies and use it to grind a smooth paste is required.

***Wear gloves while de-seeding whole red chilies to avoid any burning sensation. Its a much cleaner process and helps you remove all the seeds. Hand are all clean and eyes safe, so its worth wearing those gloves!

****If you are refrigerating, place a parchment paper or plastic sheet on a plate. Now    put tablespoonful mounds which are a little spread out. Freeze them. Once frozen, store them an air tight, freezer safe container. This way, you can use as much as you want each time, without having to thaw all of it.