Cook a good Thai Curry

[Sita Harris]

We elected Thailand as a second home some years ago, just to show you how much we like the country, its culture, people and above all its cuisine.
However, the veg buns we are, am always faced to cooking most of the time rather than eating out. Through the years, I have perfected my Thai curry making, and dear husband is all praise with second and third servings when I cook Thai at home. Recently, my in-laws got a taste of it and were gobsmacked with it. Well, without blowing my trumpets, I should say I pretty understand the ingredients rather well, their dosage and subtlety of flavour balance.

To start with, a Thai curry can be red, green or yellow. The debate is as to which is hotter in chillies? I would say each one is! The fiery Thai birds eye chilli is not to be messed with. 
You can well make a very simple Thai flavour simile curry with as little ingredients as possible: 
You need some asian small shallots, galangal (bigger wild ginger rhizome), ginger, garlic, coriander leaves and roots, lemongrass (cut the base only, not the entire long stem), kaffir lime leaves. 
For RED curry, add soaked dry red chillies and fresh red chillies. Choose your chillies according to the heat you can withstand. 
For GREEN curry, replace all red chillies with green chillies. It's that simple!
For YELLOW curry, add freshly ground turmeric root to the mix.
I like to up the coriander taste by toasting some coriander seeds and grinding it along the paste. 
Stage 1: grind all the ingredients into a paste adding a bit of water if necessary. But it should not require it as the other fresh ingredients give out the required moisture. 
Stage 2: Heat some oil, and gently fry the paste, stirring frequently, season to taste. Add some coconut milk with its cream well stirred and allow the paste to reduced until the oil starts to show. 
Allow to cool and store in a tight fitted jar. it will keep well in the fridge for a long time.