Lamb Green Thai Curry

Posted by petra08 on April 8, 2013 · 9 Comments 

Last week one of my friends sent me a text message, asking what to do with whole, fresh almonds. I have never cooked with them but seen them in a recipe. They were then peeled and toasted whole in a pan. When we meet I was given a bag full of whole, fresh almonds! It was so nice of her to think of me, she had bought them at her local market. I have never seen them for sale and was so happy about this treat!

Saying this I wanted to do something else than toasting the almonds and as I never cooked with fresh almonds before the first thing I did was to peel one and taste it. Sure enough it does need cooking of some sort.

Fresh almonds with peel on 

Cutting it in half I can see that how juicy they are and how you can get almond milk from them.

The peeled almonds were beautiful 

I spent a couple of days thinking and in the end decided that I wanted a Thai Curry and use the almonds in that. One of my friends had an assignment a few years ago, she had to pick five friends and cook a dish that reflected their personality. I was lucky to be one of the five she chose even if I perhaps decided not to analyse the flavours vs. my personality! The curry she did for me has the best balance between the hot and sour I have found so far and I make it on a regular basis. It is just delicious. It is well worth making your own Thai Curry paste.

Start with the rice and whilst that is cooking, I used a mix of brown and wild rice, cooking time 45 minutes, whilst that was cooking I did the green curry.

Thai Green Curry paste, serves 4, prep time about 10 minutes

• 8 spring onions, sliced
• 3 green chilies, sliced
• 4 limes, zest and juice
• about 3 cm ginger, peeled and sliced
• 5 garlic cloves, peeled and roughly chopped
• Parsley, roughly chopped
• Coriander, chopped
• 1 whole bag/plant of fresh basil leaves
• 6 dried kafir lime leaves

Place all the ingredients in a pestle and mortar or in the blender until it becomes a quite loose paste. It smells wonderful from the herbs and the lime.

Thai Green Curry, serves 4

• Pak Choy, sliced and separate the leaves from the stem
• 1 carrot, cut julienne
• Fresh almonds, peeled
• 1 celery stick, peeled and sliced
• 1 onion, cut
• mushrooms, quartered and pre cooked
• Corns from 1 sweetcorn
• broccoli tender stem stems (I used the florets the day before)
• Thai Green curry paste
• neck of lamb fillet, sliced thin
• Coconut milk, one light one regular can

Open the coconut tins and from the regular put the white in a bowl on the side and use the clear liquid. The harder white will be used later.

Place the milk in a pan with the curry paste and when it starts to simmer add the veg. All but the crispy part of the pak choy, to be added later to keep it crispy. I set the timer to 10 minutes and added the sliced neck of lamb, let simmer. I have made this curry with chicken, prawns and salmon but lamb is my favourite. When it is almost done add the last of the coconut, this will make it creamy and add coconut flavour, and serve with the rice.

The almonds were delicious in the curry and if I ever find them I will make sure to buy some, thank you Melanie! In celebration of the weekends sunshine I decided that it was time to celebrate spring and had a bottle of rose, Wolf to go with the curry, any excuse!

I did a fruit salad for dessert making the meal very healthy and delicious, fresh fruits with just a touch of honey.

I entered this to Karen’s fab Lavender and Lovage, – Herbs on Saturday and Javelin Warriors always great challenge Made with Love Mondays

 

Filed under Allotment/Veg, Asian Pear, Broccoli, Carrot, Chilli, Fruit, Garlic, Grapes, Herbs, Hot Sauce, Lamb, Meat, Mushroom, Onion, Recipe, Rice, Rose, Spring onion, Starch, Sweet corn, Wine, Wolf · Tagged with fresh almonds, green curry paste, lamb curry lamb green curry, Thai green curry, thai green curry paste