This is my personal Thai Green Curry recipe that has been in my family for a very long time. My grandparents were actually some of the first people to introduce green curry to the north of Thailand. Northern Thai food is very different from regular Thai food and back in the 1950’s people had never seen a green curry before!! My grandparent’s Thai green curry recipe soon became very popular in and around Chiang Mai!
Nowadays Thai green curry is the most famous of all Thai curries and is popular all around the world. Although it’s not extremely hot it certainly has a kick to it! This is because Thai green curry paste is actually green because of the green chilies which is one of the main ingredients in the curry paste. The greener the curry the hotter it’s going to be!
You can have a go at making your own green curry paste if you want. It’s not hard but finding the right ingredients can be tricky. Check out my Thai green curry paste recipe if you’re interested. I also recommend the best green curry paste to buy if you don’t want to make your own.
What About The Coconut Milk?
This is really important. This is where your curry can go completely wrong if you choose the wrong coconut milk. The main thing I hear from people is that they can’t get their curry thick and creamy enough. This is simply because they are using poor-quality coconut milk.
In Thailand it’s easy. You can just head down to the market and get a bag of freshly squeezed coconut milk! In Western countries, people just tend to pick up whatever they find in the supermarket. There is quite a wide selection but most of them are just too watery.
You need to head to your closest Asian supermarket or buy some real coconut milk online. There are only 2 brands of coconut milk that I can recommend. My first choice is ChaoKoh Coconut Milk. If that is unavailable then my second choice is Aroy-D Coconut Milk.
Thai Green Curry
Ingredients
- 400 ml Coconut Milk
- 2 tbsp Green Curry Paste
- 300 g Sliced Chicken Breast
- 3 tbsp Fish Sauce
- 50 g Palm Sugar
- 50 g Sliced Aubergine
- 50 g Sliced Green Pepper
- 50 g Sliced Courgettes
- 30 g Mange Tout
- 3 Kaffir Lime Leaves
- 3 Basil Leaves
- 1 Long Red Chilli
- 1 sprig Basil
Instructions
- Put a quarter of the can of coconut milk in the sauce pan or wok and let it simmer for a couple of minutes
- Add your curry paste and stir it into the coconut milk until it’s all mixed together.
- Let it simmer for at least 5 minutes until it becomes fragrant. The longer you leave it simmering the more flavoursome your curry will be! (This is the most important part of the recipe and many green curries end up tasting terrible because the curry paste isn’t left to simmer for long enough).
- Add the chicken and stir it into the curry paste until all the chicken is covered.
- Add the remainder of the coconut milk and turn the heat up and bring it to the boil before reducing the heat again to let it simmer.
- Add the sugar and fish sauce.
- Stir and then taste. (You can add more sugar or more fish sauce if the flavour isn’t strong enough).
- Add the aubergine first (as these take longer to cook)
- When it begins to boil again you can add the courgettes, baby corn and kaffir lime leaves.
- Bring it to the boil once more and that’s it.
- Spoon it into a serving bowl and sprinkle with the basil leaves and chilli slices.
Video
Notes
- Use less curry paste if you don’t want it too spicy
- You can use normal white sugar if you don’t have palm sugar
- You can use different vegetables if you want (but try and keep the total to 250g)
- Use white sugar if you can’t find any palm sugar
This is the end result; A delicious Thai green curry. Best served with some delicious Jasmine rice.
Great recipe and the 3 Common mistakes comment was very useful. I modified it slightly as I fried the paste for a few minutes before adding the coconut milk and would love some feedback on that modification. I shall be using this recipe again and again!
Very nice recipe, explanation and website. Thanks!