Hi Teen Chefs

This week as it is Thai New Year (13-15 April) we will be making – Thai Green Curry with Prawns

Songkran is Thailand’s most famous festival. An important event on the Buddhist calendar, this water festival marks the beginning of the traditional Thai New Year. The name Songkran comes from a Sanskrit word meaning ‘passing’ or ‘approaching.

The festivities are accompanied with music, dancing, and lots of water! In fact as April is the hottest month of the year in Thailand, the water brings relief from the soaring temperatures.

Songkran started as a Buddhist tradition, using a light sprinkling of water to symbolise purification.

Curries are an important part of Thai cuisine and refer to both the dish as well as the curry paste used to make the dish. There are three main types of Thai curries—red, yellow, and green—which are identified by the colour of the curry paste. It is the colour of the chili that imparts each signature colour to the paste, and each curry paste has its own distinct flavour.

Traditionally, all Thai curries were made with the same ingredients except for one thing: the chilies. Red curry was made with several red chilies for a fiery hot dish, while green curry was made with green chilies, and yellow curry was made with yellow chilies. In Thailand, these chilies have slightly different taste characteristics in addition to their colour. Over time, however, other ingredients have been added to the curry pastes to enhance each recipe, making them more distinct from one another. Although all three colours may be spicy-hot depending on the chef, normally green is the mildest and red the hottest with yellow being somewhere in between. 

Green Curry 

This brightly coloured curry is considered the most popular curry used in Thai cuisine. The green colour has become more vibrant over the years with the addition of fresh coriander, kaffir lime leaf, and basil. These herbs are combined with fresh green chilies and several other ingredients such as lemongrass, shrimp paste, garlic, and shallots.  The consistency of the sauce can be adjusted by the amount of coconut milk used.

Thai curry is very different from other countries’ curries.   Thai food achieves the perfect balance between hot, sour, sweet and salty.

Coconut milk is used traditionally in a lot of Asian cooking. Thai green curry and laksa are two of the most well know dishes but it can be used in most curries as a lighter and tastier alternative to cream. Coconut milk is made by extracting the flesh of the coconut, grating it and soaking it in hot water. It is then left to cool and strained through cheesecloth. The coconut milk separates, creating coconut milk and coconut cream, and is sold in varying densities. Fresh coconut milk is generally not available in the UK as it has a very short shelf life so we have to make do with tinned versions.

Coconut milk is high in vitamin B3 and still considered to be good for the body due to its make-up of medium chain fatty acids. These are easily digested and even considered by some to promote weight loss.

A good substitute for cow’s milk, coconut milk is lactose free, which means it’s great for both allergy sufferers and vegans alike. It is also a more sustainable and environmentally friendly choice than cow’s milk. However, coconut milk is much higher in calories and fat than cow’s milk, so it should be consumed in moderation.

Shellfish and coconut milk go hand in hand –So the end result for our Prawn Thai Green curry will be an aromatic dish that is beautiful to serve and eat.

In this week’s dish we will be using the following skills: Washing, weighing, measuring, chopping, stir-frying and boiling/simmering, blending, food processing.

See you Saturday Teen Chefs.