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
