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Green Curry (P-Mala’s Recipe)
Green Curry with Pork is a staple Thai dish. This is the second green curry recipe on the website, this one was taught to me by P-Mala, a cook for over 20 years. Her green curry was raved about, and she invited me over yesterday to learn from her how she makes it.
Directions
- Prepare the ingredients for the curry paste. Slice the lemongrass into thin rounds, peel the skin off the garlic & shallots, slice the galangal and the magroot skin into thin slivers, and remove the stems from the chilies.
- In a stone mortar & pestle, start with the drier and harder ingredients first: add the galangal, magroot skin, lemongrass, peppercorns and salt. Smash together until a fairly uniform paste. This may take a few minutes.
- Add the wet ingredients: the garlic, shallots and chilies. Do not add the shrimp paste yet. Smash until fairly uniform. This is homestyle curry, so the curry paste isn’t meant to look perfect like at the market. It’s ok (and even preferred) to have it a bit ‘chunky’, but it shouldn’t be not mixed. See picture for finished product.
- When finished, add the shrimp paste and pound until mixed well.
- Slice the meat into thin slices (as shown in the picture) and set aside. If using fresh coconut milk, separate the head from the tail (milk from cream) and place in two different bowls. If using canned coconut milk, don’t shake the can. Skim the top cream off and place it in a bowl, and place the rest in another. You’ll probably need to thin out the rest with another can’s worth of water, since canned coconut milk is much thicker than fresh.
- Heat a wok over medium-high heat and add 1/2 cup of the coconut cream. It should be the same consistency of cow’s milk. If it’s a lot thicker, thin it down with water. Wait until it boils and the oil separates, this should take about 2 minutes.
- Add all the curry paste, and mix well. Keep stirring and flipping the paste so it doesn’t burn. You’ll need to cook the paste for about 3 minutes until it becomes quite fragrant and you begin to sneeze. As the paste dries out, and starts to stick to the pan, keep adding more coconut cream a few tablespoons at a time. Don’t let the paste burn.
- When the paste is finished cooking, add the meat and 1/2 cup of coconut cream. Cook the meat on medium heat for 15 minutes. Flip and stir every minute or two to prevent burning. If it’s too dry, keep adding coconut cream or milk. It should be a wet fry, almost a simmer. P-Mala said you’ll start to see a light green film, or oil rise to the top towards the end of the cooking time.
- Add the palm sugar, and mix well.
- Add the rest of the coconut milk (and water if using canned) and bring to a rapid boil. Then add the eggplants and long chilies, and boil for 2 minutes.
- Add the lime leaves and basil, remove from heat and serve.
(29 votes, average: 3.62 out of 5)
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Ingredients: What You'll Need
- 1 cup pork, shoulder cut or similar, sliced thin
- 3/4 teaspoon palm sugar
- 4 green thai eggplants
- 1/4 cup pea eggplants
- 1 red & 1 green long thai chili
- 1 teaspoon lime leaves (3-8 leaves)
- 2 tablespoons packed thai basil leaves (8-10 leaves)
- 3 cups coconut milk
The Curry Paste:
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 teaspoon black peppercorns
- 1 teaspoon galangal, sliced into slivers
- 2 teaspoons magroot skin, sliced into slivers
- 1 1/2 tablespoons lemongrass, bottom of the stalk, sliced into rounds
- 1 1/2 tablespoons shallots, skin removed
- 2 1/2 tablespoons garlic, skin removed
- 2 1/2 tablespoons green small thai chilies, whole
- 3/4 teaspoon shrimp paste
11 Responses to Green Curry (P-Mala’s Recipe)
…not a big fan of coconut milk bout p’ Mala’s recipe looks scrumptious!!
Riya –
It is quite good. Actually when I ate the curry she made for me, I was sure that it was the best green curry I’ve tried in Thailand. So I’m quite happy to have gotten the recipe to add to the website!
I have never tried a green curry, but you’ve made me want to expand my horizons.
This looks absolutely delicious! I’ve never made curry paste from scratch (been too intimidated!) but this sounds like it’s not that difficult. I can’t wait to try it!
Deborah -
Green curry is fantastic. I think it’s my favorite Thai curry. I’m afraid if you try it at a Thai restaurant in the US it won’t be quite right. It’s hard to get authentic Thai food over there.
Mango -
It’s not that hard actually. I think it took me about 5 minutes to pound the paste total. Once you do it a few times I think you can whip out a curry from scratch in about 30 minutes. And the best part is you can make a ton of it and store it in the freezer. It freezes fine.
Good luck, and let me know how it comes out!
hey i love green curry too! just wondering, how many does this amount serve? in your opinion, how much difference will it make to the ingredients if im making it for 6-8 servings? I might use this if guests come to my house for dinner =D really brilliant.
Jasdekee-
This makes about one large bowl full, enough for maybe 2-3 people. You probably want to triple it if serving that many. It’s really great with Khanom Jeen noodles — can you get those where you are?
yeah, kanom jeen noodles are available here.
so which means to say every amount i’d just have to triple the flavour, the same for the curry paste? afraid it might be too spicy though with that amount of small chillis
Jasdekdee-
Triple everything, the paste, the meat, the coconut milk, etc. Green curry is meant to be very spicy. This recipe is for Thai-level heat, and actually, compared to Jett’s Mom’s recipe it’s rather mild. If you (or your guests!) don’t like to eat Thai-level spicy, simply lower the amount of chilies, but keep the rest of the ingredients at the same amount. You could take away about 25% or so and it would still taste OK.
And, eating this dish with rice is probably less spicy than Khanom Jeen noodles.
Hi, when do the eggplants go in?
I enjoyed making Green Curry with you on my recent visit to Thailand.
The step by step preparation was really interesting but the best part was
shopping at the open market down the street for all of the fresh vegetables and listening to you speak to the vendors and the big smile on their faces!
The fresh coconut milk that the vendor made by shredding the coconut in the
shredding machine and then ‘pressing it’ to make the milk with the cream settling at the top was unbelievable. This dish was spectacular and adding the cream of the coconut and then the milk really made the difference. I only wish I had a market like that down MY street!!! I had 2 big helpings!!!