Wednesday, 15 November 2017

Geng Gari Curry from Thai Food Made Easy

I'm coming to you with a problem dear readers. My husband and I are funding our local thai restaurants rent with the amount of takeaway we order. We actually (embarrassingly so) order so much Thai take-away week to week that the driver now knows us and our broken apartment buzzer. And whats more embarrassing... they have an app that records your orders so that every 10th order is free... we've had a few free orders.

Geng Gari Curry | Thai Food Made Easy | salt sugar and i

I can't help it, I freakin' love Thai food. It's one of my all time favourites. The freshness and variety of dishes mmmm just yum. As of last year, it also reminds me of our holiday in Patong where we ate fried rice topped with the perfect fried egg... runny yolk... crispy bottom, every single day. I wish I cooked more thai food at home than I do because as much as I love our takeaway place it's just not as good coming in those plastic boxes as it is piping hot, straight from the wok. But there is a reason for our takeaway problem. I find thai cooking somewhat intimidating. Yes, I'm a food blogger and I just admitted that. Bite me. But honestly, I do and I don't think I'm the only one. I mean, I'm pretty good with the pre-made curry pastes from the supermarket but other than that my thai cooking skills usually involve me botching up a salty stir fry by adding every asian sauce and condiment from the fridge. Sometimes it's great and others... well let just say I don't go back for seconds.



I find Thai flavours complex with the combination of sweet, and sour, and spicy. Sometimes it's the overwhelmingly ginormous ingredient list, that one odd ingredient I can't find ANYWHERE or the 100 bowls for each element that need to be hand washed because I'm still dreaming of owning a dishwasher one day. Maybe these are my excuses that makes me order thai takeaway instead of cooking.

Geng Gari Curry | Thai Food Made Easy | salt sugar and i


But I think it's all about to change... I was recently sent a copy of Thai Food Made Easy by Tom Kime. The recipes in this book look mouthwatering good - the herbs and colours and limes and charred bits! It covers the classics and other's I've not heard of before but look very tempting to try. The ingredient list in each recipe is simple and yes, it still looks like a long list for some but none of the ingredients are mad and you'll find them in your local supermarket easy.

I made Geng Gari Curry a couple of weeks ago when the weather wasn't so summery and it was the perfect warming curry. It was so so good! Such big flavours and not heavy at all. I'd cook the chicken on the BBQ next time and definitely over summer to get those charred edges and serve it with some sort of crunchy salad. We had a big bowl of it on a cool evening with steamed rice and it was seriously better than any thai takeaway I've ever had. I didn't even mind the washing up after.

If you're looking at the photos and two and two aren't matching up, I doubled the recipe below because leftovers are gold in our castle and curry always tastes better the next day.

This book has definitely made me rethink Thai cooking and that a little bit of prep goes a long way for flavour and it doesn't need to be complicated. I will be sharing more from this little gem soon. Maybe the prawn noodle salad with mint and toasted peanuts and the spiced prawn cakes on lemongrass sticks. So good.

Geng Gari Curry | Thai Food Made Easy | salt sugar and i

Geng Gari Curry with Roast Chicken

recipe from Thai Food Made Easy by Tom Kime
Serves 2

A geng gari is a delicious curry with a base of ground toasted spices which add a delicious earthy foundation to the curry. This would work really well as a vegetarian curry with roasted sweet potato and butternut squash.

fresh
250g chicken, cut into pieces*
1 portion of Geng gari paste (see below)
100g baby corn**
juice of 2 limes
20 Thai basil leaves, coarsely chopped
2cm piece of ginger, peeled and thinly sliced into matchsticks
3 spring onions, thinly sliced, to garnish

spices
1 teaspoon coriander seeds
1 teaspoon cumin seeds
freshly ground black pepper

pantry/larder
salt
1 tablespoon tamarind pulp
2 tablespoons light soy sauce
vegetable oil for cooking

*I used chicken thigh, cut into pieces.
**I added more veggies as I can't help myself

Coarsely crush the coriander and cumin seeds using a mortar and pestle. Drizzle the chicken pieces with a little olive oil, season with salt, black pepper and crushed spices.

Pan-fry or grill the chicken over a medium-high heat for about 10 minutes until golden, caramelised on all sides and cooked through.

Heat the curry paste in a frying pan over medium heat and add the baby corn (**and any other vegetables you'd like to add). Add the lime juice, tamarind pulp and light brown soy sauce along with half the thai basil and ginger.

Taste the curry paste to check the balance of flavours and adjust if needed: it should be hot sour and salty.

Add the chicken to the sauce, garnish with spring onions and remaining basil. Serve with steamed rice as a stand along dish or as an accompaniment to other dishes, such as a crisp salad, vegetable or a rice dish.


Geng Gari Curry Paste

makes 3 portions

fresh
3cm piece of ginger, peeled
4 red chillies, seeded
3 lemongrass stems, tough outer leaves removed and stems chopped
6 garlic cloves
3 red onions, chopped
juice of 2 limes

spices
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon ground coriander
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 teaspoon ground tumeric

pantry/larder
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
600ml coconut cream
1 tablespoon tamarind pulp
2 tablespoon light soy sauce

Puree the ginger, chillies, lemongrass, garlic and salt in a food processor or blender to a smooth paste. Add the onions and puree again. Add a little water to help bring it together to form a smooth paste.

Heat the oil in a heavy-based frying pan over medium-high heat  for 1 minute. Add the ground spices and cook for about 2 minutes until fragrant. Add the purees paste and reduce the heat to low and cook slowly for 25-30 minutes, stirring frequently to avoid sticking, until aromatic.

Add the coconut cream and simmer for about 5 minutes until reduced by half. Add the lime juice, tamarind pulp and light soy sauce, then taste to check the balance of flavours and adjust if needed.

Divide the paste into three portions. It can now be used straight away, kept in the refrigerator for 1 week or in the freezer for 3 months.

6 comments:

  1. I am with you on this one - my thai takeaway ordering skills are pretty legendary but the food is just so tasty. I am not great at cooking it either but this recipe looks divine. So warming and delicious. I would love a big bowl right now!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. They make Thai Takeaway too easy haha! I want to try some of the BBQ recipes and dipping sauces for summer which I think will be really tasty :)

      Delete
  2. This is wonderful blog. I got a lot of stuff from this blog.. Food curry is so easy to cook.stayinkitchen

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks! I agree, curry can be such an easy meal to cook :)

      Delete

Thanks for stopping by, I love hearing from you! x

...

#giveaway 15 minute meals 30 minute meals 5 Minute Food Fix A Common Table A Kitchen in the Valley A Modern Way to Eat Acquacotta Adam Liaw Alison Roman Alison Thompson almonds Amelia Morris Anna Jones Annie Herron Antonio Carluccio Anya von Bremzen apple apps Apt 2b Baking Co Artisan Sourdough Made Simple Ashley Rodriguez autumn avocado babies baby baby shower bacon Bake baked pasta baking Bali Barcelona Cult Recipes basil BBQ beans beef beetroot Bill Granger biscuits blondies Bon Appetempt Bowl & Spoon bread breadcrumbs broccoli brussel sprouts burgers burrito buttercream butternut squash byo cabbage cake calzone camping Carla Lali Music carrot cauliflower chicken childhood chilli chinese cooking chipotle chocolate chorizo chutney Claire Ptak Classic German Baking Classics 1 Classics 2 coconut Comfort Food cookbook addict cookies cordial corn cucumber curry custard Cynthia Chen McTernan Date Night In David Dale Delicious. magazine dessert Dining In dinner party nightmares Dinner: A Love Story dip doings Donna Hay Donna Hay Magazine dumplings easy egg eggplant Eleanor Ford Emiko Davies Emilie Raffa Emma Spitzer ENOTW Every Night of the Week Veg family Fast Fresh Simple Feast Feasting fennel fiction Fire Islands Five Quarters Flora Sheedan Florentine Food & Wine Food52 Fresh & Light Fress frozen dessert Fuchsia Dunlop galette Gatherings Genius Recipes Gennaro Contaldo Gennaro's Fast Cook Italian Gennaro's Italian Bakery Gennaro's Pasta Perfecto! german ginger gnocchi goats cheese granola Greenfeast gumbo Gwyneth Paltrow Happenings holiday home home-grown herbs How to be a Domestic Goddess hungry Hunter Valley ice-cream indian Indonesian Cooking involtini It's All Easy It's all Good jam Jamie Does Jamie Magazine Jamie Oliver Jamie's America Jamie's Great Britain Jamie's Italy Jane Hornby japanese Jenny Rosenstrach Jessica Fechtor Julia Turshen Justine Schofield. The Weeknight Cookbook kale Karen Martini kimchi Kitchen korean Kylee Newton LA Cult Recipes Land of Fish and Rice leek lemon lentils life Light of Lucia Link Love links long weekends love Luciana Sampogna Lucio Galletto Lucy Tweed Luisa Weiss Maggie Beer maple Marc Grossman Marcella Hazan Marian Burros Martha Stewart Matthew Evans meal planning meatballs meatloaf mess mexican Michael James Michelle Crawford mince mint miso Monte Carlos Mum's cooking mushroom mussels My Berlin Kitchen My Kitchen Year Naturally Ella new beginnings New York Cult recipes Nigel Slater Nigelissima Nigella Bites Nigella Express Nigella Lawson No Time to Cook noodles North West Island nostalgia Not Just Jam NotWithoutSalt oats omelette paddle pops parsley pasta Paul McIntyre Paul West Paulene Christie pea pecans pesto pickle pickles pie pizza Plenty Plenty More plum pork potato prawns preserving prosciutto pudding pumpkin quesadilla quinoa Rachel eats Rachel Khoo Rachel Roddy ragu rambles raspberry recipe rhubarb rice risotto River Cottage Australia romantic Ruth Reichl saffron salad Sally Wise salsa verde Salt Fat Acid Heat Samin Nosrat sandwiches Sara Forte sausage Save with Jamie schupfnudeln seafood sesame Seven Spoons Simon David Simple slow cooker Slow Cooker Central Small Victories Sophie Hansen soup sourdough Sprouted Kitchen starters Stephanie Danler Stir stir-fry stuffed sushi Sweet Amandine sweet potato Sweetbitter tahini Taking Stock Tara O-Brady Taste Tibet Tasting Rome thai Thai Food Made Easy The Art of Pasta The Best of Maggie Beer The Comfort Bake The Dinner Ladies The Little Book of Slow The Little Paris Kitchen The Modern Cook's Year The Modern Preserver The Naked Chef The New Classics The Tivoli Road Baker The Violet Bakery Cookbook The Wednesday Chef The Zen Kitchen thyme Tom Kime tomato tuna turkey tuscany Two Greedy Italians Two Red Bowls Valeria Necchio vanilla veal vegetables vegetarian Veneto vietnamese wedding wedding cake What can I bring? What to Bake and How to Bake it Where Cooking Begins Where the Heart is yoghurt Yossy Arefi Yotam Ottolenghi Yumi Stynes zucchini