EAT IN ASIA / Destinations / Thailand
Red curry paste with fried young coconut and basil leaves served with rice
Wow! Sounds great, doesn’t it? Young coconut shoots – I have never tried it before! And add to that a red curry paste and chicken! That must be delicious, and yes, it is indeed! Although it is relatively spicy due to the curry paste, but it is at the same time so aromatic and so rarely served in restaurants. Apart from that, it comes with sticky rice that all in all create a wonderful meal.
Thai red curry paste
Tender young coconut shoots are slightly fried. They are tender but not over fried. Due to this short frying process, young coconut shoots do not lose their color and nicely shine in the red curry paste. This unique Thai red curry paste is a composition of many ingredients, and it is really important to follow the recipe if you try to do it at home. Remember that it completely changes the flavor if you replace for example some herbal powder with its seeds. And if you make changes to many ingredients, the result you get, will be far from the expected one.
So, what is in the paste? The base of this paste is of course a rich serving of chilis. Then come both fresh and dried spices and herbs and some extra pastes.
Let’s start with fresh ingredients. You will need sliced lemongrass, peeled and grated galangal, garlic cloves, chopped coriander - both stems and roots, chopped shallots and some lemon zest.
Then come spices like ground coriander and cumin. Finally, shrimp paste in oil is necessary. So, as you can see the list is relatively long but still most of these ingredients are available worldwide, so you can try to make this Thai red curry paste in your country too.
Fried young coconut with basil leaves in a red curry paste served with rice
The basic recipe includes chicken, but as always you can choose your favorite option. Select pork, chicken, prawns, tofu or just go without any extras. Even in that case – just young coconut shoots in a red curry paste served with white rice taste wonderfully!
The red curry paste is relatively hot but not so hot to kill the whole taste of the dish. If you eat it separately, I mean, once take a portion of the rice, and then pair it with the young coconut shoot sauce, then you can enjoy the full composition of flavors. The mild rice taste creates a great base for the awesome sauce with coconut shoots to which are added fried Thai basil leaves. It neutralizes the spiciness of the red curry paste and also allows to distinguish different spices that are in the paste.
Dominating aromas in the red curry paste with fried young coconut, basil leaves and rice
Although the dish has almost the whole palette of aromas, there is a couple of them that are the most dominating, but still not overwhelming all other.
At the first place, I would mention galangal, cumin and coriander, The fresh coriander aroma is the first thing that you can distinguish. Especially because the rice was topped with a beautiful, green, fresh coriander leaf, that I could smell without trying it!
Then delicate garlic notes are very intense. Of course, chili is flavorful, so it is all the time somewhere in the background. Fresh lemongrass and lemon zest nicely add some acidity to the meal. Finally, the shrimp paste adds a great additional fishy taste. This ingredient should not be skipped in any way. That is something that although it might not be the mostly liked ingredient by many people, when added in a cautious way, gives a sublime and unique extra flavor.
Red curry paste with fried young coconut, basil leaves, chicken or tofu served with rice
If I had to recommend any extra ingredient to the dish, I would suggest selecting chicken that has a relatively mild taste. Thanks to that the meat flavor would not collide with the curry sauce. Apart from that, chicken meat is easily absorbing other aromas, so it will gain quickly additional aromas.
Another good option is to go with tofu curd. Not only because it is a good source of proteins for all those who do not eat meat, but also because, as it is in the case of chicken, it gets easily additional flavors by being soaked in the curry.
From my point of view the worst option would be to choose seafood in any form. No matter what you take - shrimps, squids or a mix of them, the result will not be the best. For me, two relatively strong and dominating tastes – the one from the curry paste and the one from the seafood, will be killing one another and the whole final impression will be not so good. Prawns’ or squids’ delicate tastes will be totally dominated by the sauce, while the sauce will get an extra seafood aftertaste that will not mix well with the basic composition.
If you enjoyed that dis with basil leaves, try also Omelet on rice with fried crispy basil leaves and minced pork meat and Stir fried preserved egg with crispy basil (Kai Yiew Ma Kra Prao Krob).
