Green Thai curry paste recipe

Jon asked for the recipie in the post below.

Here it is again, together with the method for the rest of the dish.

For the Paste
Handful of fresh coriander,
Handful of fresh basil,
2 Green chillies, seeded,
1 small onion,
2 stalks lemongrass,
4 cloves garlic,
root ginger about 5cm piece of,
1 tsp ground cumin,
1 tbsp thai fish sauce,
the peel of half a lime,
1 tsp black peppercorns,

Method: Finely chop everything, except the peppercorns, grind them down. Stick the lot in a blender and blend it until it looks like the stuff in the picture below. Put it in a bowl and cover it well, otherwise everything in the fridge will smell of it, it's that good.

For Green Thai Chicken
Prep time 5 minutes, cooking time, 10 minutes. Serves 4

3 chicken breasts,
1 large green pepper,
250 grammes of closed cup mushrooms,
200 ml coconut milk

Method
Thinly slice the chicken, pepper and mushrooms. Heat your wok or frying pan and add about 2 tbsp of cooking oil. When the oil is smoking, add the chicken and briskly stir fry until the meat is sealed, then add the mushrooms and pepper. Continue frying until the mushrooms start to soften, then at 2 tsp of green thai curry paste, stir, then add the coconut milk. Stir, then let it cook for a minute or so.
Now try the sauce. If it tastes a bit flat, add another teaspoon of the paste. Keep trying it until you're happy. If you add too much, just add a bit more coconut milk to thin it out again. Let it simmer for 2-3 minutes, then serve with rice.
Did I forget to mention the rice? Darn. Best to soak the rice first, around about the time you make the curry paste. That will get rid of the starch and it'll cook quicker. Remember to rinse it before you cook it.

Serve with a good lager beer. Mmmmm, beer.

I always panic with stir frying, as everything happens so fast, but if you're careful with your preparation, it's a doddle.

Green Thai curry paste

Green Thai curry paste
Originally uploaded by Smallbrainfield.

Wow, the colour of this stuff was incredibly vivid. I'd never made it before, so I checked out a few recipies online to work out what the ingredients were and then went for it.
The smell is incredible, sharp and intense. Made it in the afternoon and cooked the curry in the evening when the guests arrived. I have to say, even though I made it myself, it was bloody wonderful, and went great washed down with beer. The remainder of the paste I froze this morning for use another time.

The Nun Bus

I wonder if anyone will see this, or guess what it's for before I get a chance to use it? Here's a clue, it will be full of nuns.

Cats in trees

Cats in trees
Originally uploaded by Smallbrainfield.

...or what cats get up to while you're out at work. I had to take the kids to the dentist this morning, so I stayed at home and did a bit of work until it was time for their appointment.
My daughter called me into the front room and there was a cat climbing the tree outside our house. Minutes later, across the street another cat climbed into a tree. They sat there looking at each other for a bit and generally pissing off the magpies that normally land in the upper branches. Finally, the second cat climbed down and started messing about on the wall with a third cat that had been observing proceedings from a nearby garden.

I don't know what happened to the first cat as it wasn't there when I looked a few minutes later. Perhaps it was carried off by an eagle or borrowed a car or something.

Viking

Viking
Originally uploaded by Smallbrainfield.

Never were the Norse men happier than when they were burning down a village for fun and profit

Boost

Boost
Originally uploaded by Smallbrainfield.

The biscuit Boost. Once there were 3 kinds of Boost, biscuit, coconut and peanut. Now there is but one. Apart from the ill-advised dalliance with guarana in the first part of the decade, they remain a favourite in the chocolate bar firmament, apart from Star Bars, which are not only chocolatey, but salty as well. Surely God's own choclate bar. (Ideally they would smell of bacon too, but I digress.)

Here we see pictured the snack of the affluent fop, struggling with a headache, yet all too easily sucked in by the fripperies of a caramel covered biscuit wafer and thick, thick chocolate.

Coming soon.

Coming soon.
Originally uploaded by Smallbrainfield.

Another adventure for Mr Magic Tea-Fingers is in the works.

The Hovis Witnesses

They'll come and talk to you on your doorstep, and tell you fajitas are wrong, and that for every drop of mayonnaise you spill, you edge a little closer to hell...

Hello Lee, Paul and Mike

Is this you? Are you Paul Little or indeed Lee Moran, or Mike Marsden? Perhaps you remember a time when petrol from the JET garage on Psalter Lane really was only 43.9 pence a litre? Seeing as you have to pay good money to keep in contact with your mates via Friends Re-ignited, I thought I would post this here and tag it with the names of the people in it and see what happens. We all search for our names on Google at least once. I, it turns out have had minor roles in several films and even have an entry on the IMDB.

Friends Reunited is a terrible place to go. Very depressing, and not just because of the odd person from school who now lives in Sydney sipping asses milk out of gourds and waited on by sultry and sexually vivacious handmaidens. The catalogue of names is like a list of the dead on some municipal monument to the first world war. Worse, some of them describe how they died in graphic detail. So I had a gander at some of the entries, updated my own (the internet equivalent of leaving a wreath of poppies?) and got the hell out of Dodge. Friends Reunited is owned by ITV. Every penny spent goes into the pockets of Ant & Dec, or making new episodes of Ultimate Force.




Perhaps you remember this place. Or perhaps you don’t. Hmmmm, fifteen years after leaving college and falling out of touch, I actually find I miss the people I was there with and wouldn’t mind saying hello once in a while. Perhaps you too are married with kids and possess an innate desire to purchase a large LCD or plasma television. Perhaps you already own such a thing, in which case, invite me round to press the buttons.
It may not be a good idea to meet people you haven’t seen for ten years (in some cases), I don’t know. But I wouldn’t mind finding out, even if it's just to tell me you thought I was a tosser all those years ago. And still do. At least I won't lie awake in bed at nights any more thinking; "Did they think I was a tosser?" So if it’s you, get in touch. I shall leave this blog entry like a message in a bottle to bob up and down in the internet for a few years. More than likely I will end up with another Madagascan pen pal.

Always with the photos of ring tailed lemurs.

Robert Smith

It's 'Disintergration'-era Robert Smith, out of the Cure.