This time we’ll take a short break from Indian cooking and visit some other Asian cuisines – the Thai cuisine. One of the best things in Thai cuisine are the hot and fragrant curry paste with which you can super quickly make a hearty and satisfying meal. It’s possible and actually pretty easy to make those pastes at home but the store bought ones are really great so no need to make the effort. Today you can easily find in the “Asian” section of any market store the yellow, green and red curry pastes.
But wait a minute.. isn’t curry an Indian thing?! Apparently no, there is an Indian curry and Thai curry on those or two completely different things. The Thai curry is a paste based on fresh chili, lemon grass, ginger (or galnagal), garlic, shallots and sometimes also shrimp paste. To all of this goodness you add some cumin seeds, coriander and turmeric. The traditional preparation is done in a mortar and pestle. The Indian curry is the name of a mix of dry spices which are roasted in a pan and grounded to a dry powder. There are infinite versions for Indian curry mixtures while most of them are based on some ratio of cumin seeds, coriander seeds, turmeric, fenugreek seeds and dried red chili.
The lovely smell of cardamon immediately reminds me of Indian food. Cardamon is one of my favorite spices, it has strong smell and flavor while somehow it is also delicate and a little sweet.