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Thai Seafood Green Curry

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The wonderful warm weather that we have been experiencing in Port Elizabeth has cooks and their hungry hordes feeling listless and not up to eating a big or cooked meals every night, so salads and fish braais have been the order of the day.

Someone once told me that the best thing to eat on a hot day is spicy food – after all the heat and humidity in a place like Thailand doesn’t stop the Thais from spicing up their food!

So last night was Thai Seafood Green Curry Night.

We have done this recipe with chicken and meat before (actually many variations as ingredients and measures change with the seasons and moods!) but this was our first prawn and fish attempt.

Ingredients:

  • One Onion
  • 4 Spring Onions
  • 4 Courgettes
  • Tablespoon Honey
  • Salt to taste
  • One can Coconut Milk (Buy a couple of cans as you will cook this again)
  • 2 tablespoons Thai Green Curry Paste (Buy the bigger plastic container as you will discover more reasons and variations of this dish)
  • Fish Sauce
  • Lime Juice
  • Handful fresh Coriander (Home grown is actually so easy, fresh and cheap)
  • Olive Oil (Peanut is better)
  • Butter
  • Thumb Size piece Fresh Ginger (thumb top joint size only for the cowards)
  • Thumb Size amount of Fresh Garlic
  • 250 Gram firm fresh fish (we used Hake as it was the freshest looking – boy were we deceived – read on for my rant about so-called fresh fish)
  • 800 gram frozen prawns/shrimp (read on for my rant about so-called prawns)
  • Teaspoon of Peanut Butter (optional)
  • Cooked Jasmin Rice

Method:

We do this dish in a wok and in four stages – vegetables, fish, sauce and then all combined

Vegetables:

  • Chop the onion and spring onion and toss into the wok with a little olive oil.
  • Chop Courgettes into bigger than matchstick sizes and sprinkle with salt.
  • Let onions sweat in the wok (at around 145 degree setting – yellow zone on my wok).
  • Once onions are beginning to go translucent toss honey in and stir fry.
  • Toss finely chopped ginger and garlic in.
  • Toss courgettes in and crank the heat up a bit (you want the courgettes cooked but crispy).
  • Watch that the garlic and ginger does NOT turn into little blackened bits.

Remove vegetables from wok to another dish. Ask the Longhair (or significant other to pour you another beer)

Fish:

  • Wash and drain prawns thoroughly (to remove so called protective glaze).
  • Debone and remove skin of fish. Then cut into just smaller than bite size pieces. (Cats don’t do tricks so just toss the fish offcuts at them).
  • Squirt Lime Juice over prawns and fish.
  • Stir fry fish in Olive Oil with a bit of butter added and remove to a dish.
  • Stir fry prawns the same way and remove to same fish dish (Are you still here? The rant about prawns is at the bottom of this – hang in there!)

Sauce:

  • This is where Peanut Oil really comes in handy as I like to stir fry the Thai Green Curry Paste in that.
  • Quickly Stir Fry the Thai Green Curry Paste in some Olive (Peanut) Oil.
  • Add a quarter of the can of coconut milk and blend until the mixture bubbles then add the rest of the can and blend.
  • At this point I like to add a teaspoon of peanut butter if I have not been using peanut oil.
  • Add a glug of fish sauce and a couple of squirts of lime juice to the sauce.

Combined:

  • Toss the vegetables and fish into the sauce.
  • Blend Gently until you see bubbles.
  • Turn heat down low, toss in chopped fresh coriander, cover the wok, pour yourself a cold one and go and talk to the Longhair.

Serve over Jasmine Rice.

Time: 40 minutes

Serves: Four, generously

My Fish and Prawn Rant:

I used an 800 gram packet of frozen prawns – R85.00 odd at Newton Park Spar. When I tossed the washed and drained prawns into the wok a whole heap of water was released from them. This water I drained off and weighed. To say that I was SHOCKED is an understatement as the total weight of the water that ‘leached’ out of the prawns was 300 grams. Nearly HALF the weight of what was stated on the packet.

So, instead of paying R106.00 odd per kilogram for prawns we actually ended up paying R170.00 odd per kilogram for prawn meat and that is NOT taking into account the weight of the glaze. I am feeling very sad and ripped off about that.

The fish was purchased from Five Ways Spar by the Longhair and it was not the freshest for the following reasons:

  • The skin felt ‘listless’ and rubbery
  • The fish had a faint fishy smell
  • I got the faintest whiff of an ammonia smell as I tossed it into the wok (Admittedly I have an extremely sensitive nose)
  • The colour made me think that the fish had been frozen and was not freshly caught as advertised.

But, despite the cook’s moans our Thai Seafood Green Curry got the thumbs up from both dwarves and the Longhair.

 

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