Curry Pastes

Enter any Asian food store and you will see an aisle of curry pastes sold in plastic tubs. The quality is very high and they are really useful to have in your refrigerator. Most share a base of lemongrass, galangal, ginger, garlic, makrut (kaffir lime) leaves, shrimp paste, shallots, garlic and ground spices like cumin and coriander. Thai red curry paste has the addition of both reconstituted dried and fresh bird’s eye chillies. A variation of this is Malaysian Penang red curry paste, which is slightly less hot, sweeter and sometimes has ground peanuts. Massaman Thai curry paste has Islamic influences with the addition of Middle Eastern spices like cloves and cinnamon. It’s used to make the rich curry with the same name that includes potatoes, meat and peanuts. Yellow curry paste is a Thai paste that’s more sour than the red variety and has Indian curry powder and turmeric added. It’s sometimes called sour curry paste. Green curry paste is a famous Thai recipe that uses copious green chillies, lime leaves and coriander (cilantro) to give it a bright green colour.