If you have a ready-made (green, yellow or red - your choice!) curry paste from the cold shelves of an Asian shop or even the non-cold shelves of Globus.
Dead simple version:
1. For two diners, roughly chop up an onion, 3 cloves of garlic, whatever vegetables you like (if green curry, pick green-coloured veggies such as round Thai aubergine and okra).
2. Heat 2 tsp of oil in a medium pot to medium hot. Stir 2-4 tsp of the paste in this (how spicy do you like it?) for a few minutes.
3. Throw in the hardest veggies first (bashed lemongrass stalk, carrot, potato chunks). Add 1/2 cup of stock.
4. Add your meat of choice. Cook for half its cooking time.
5. Add coconut milk. And a dash of fish sauce if you like and 1 tbs of brown sugar or palm sugar. Add enough salt (remember you're eating this with rice, so a tiny bit saltier is OK).
6. Finally add ingredients such as hand-torn kaffirlime leaves, cut green onions or spring onions, Thai basil. A couple of minutes and you're done.
Serve with basmati rice or jasmine rice. Heck, even a wild rice mix makes a nice change!
If you want to make your own curry paste, you can try this recipe:
Tamarind Fish Curry
Ingredients:
90g onion or shallots, peeled and roughly chopped
4 or 5 cloves garlic, peeled and roughly chopped
3 or 4 red chillies, deseeded and sliced
3 tablespoons oil
1 teaspoon black mustard seeds
1⁄4 tsp fenugreek seeds
3/4 tsp cumin powder
1⁄2 tsp turmeric powder
3⁄4 tsp fennel powder
3⁄4 tsp coriander powder
1⁄2 tsp cardamom powder
1 tbs dried curry leaves, crushed, stalks removed
3 stalks lemongrass, bruised
2 tbs tamarind pulp, mixed with 4 tbs warm water, strained (sub: tamarind paste)
11⁄2 cups water
3⁄4 tsp brown or raw sugar
2 tomatoes, cut into thick slices
8 okra, stalks cut off
500g fish: pangasius (sub: tuna, grouper or pomfret)
80ml coconut milk (optional)
1 tsp salt (or to taste)
Method:
Pulse together or pound the onion or shallots, garlic and chillies. (Add a bit of oil, coconut milk or water to help the blades to move if using a hand-held blender.)
Heat oil to medium hot in a medium pot. Add black mustard seeds and fenugreek seeds.
When mustard seeds pop (around half a minute), add the blend of onion, garlic and chillies.
Add cumin, turmeric, fennel, coriander, cardamom, dried curry leaves and lemongrass. Reduce heat to medium-low and stir-fry for 5-7 minutes until fragrant and slightly brown.
Add tamarind juice and water. Increase heat to boil.
Add sugar, tomatoes and okra. Cook on medium heat for 5 minutes.
Add fish and simmer for 5 minutes.
Add salt and coconut milk (if using). Cook for about 10 minutes until fish flakes and okra is tender.
Serves 3 or 4.
Note: You can play around with curry paste ingredients. Add 2cm of galangal, ginger root and a couple of stalks of lemongrass for added flavour. Just slice them thinly and blitz with the base ingredients. Add soaked deseeded red dried chillies if you want to raise the bar for spicyness.