Green Thai curry paste (chilli optional)

I love making curry paste from scratch. The smells and flavours you get as you grind and blend are awesome. Now that I've got a little one, and a husband who's not a massive fan of spicy food I actually made it completely without chilli, and do you know what? It was still tasty!!

This is based on Jamie Oliver's The Naked Chef recipe but I've changed it a little over the years and now exclude salt and chilli!

You do need a food processor AND a pestle and mortar for this ideally.

4-6 spring onions OR 1 medium size white onion (chopped)

2 cloves of garlic (crushed)

1 inch fresh root ginger (grated or finely chopped)

1 tbsp coriander seeds (crushed in pestle and mortar)

1/2 tsp black pepper

2 lemon grass stalks (finely chopped) - I can't always get these and it's fine if you omit them

2 big handful of fresh basil on the stalk

2-3 big handfuls of coriander leaves on the stalk

3 tbsp olive oil

Zest and juice of 2 limes

Optional (less baby friendly) ingredients:

2-3 green chillies (deseeded and finely chopped)

1/4-1/2 tsp salt

Method:

Whack it all into the food processor and pulse.

Uses: 

Use in my Thai veggie burger recipe http://clearlyfood.blogspot.co.uk/2015/04/thai-sweet-potato-and-chickpea-burgers.html?m=1

Or as the base for a Thai curry

Thai sweet potato and chickpea burgers

I had some friends coming for dinner, and fancied making Jamie's Thai Green curry, but one person was veggie, so I was trying to think of something relatively quick and easy I could try to make so she had some protein too!

I found this recipe for Thai Sweet Potato burgers online: http://ohsheglows.com/2013/10/28/thai-sweet-potato-veggie-burgers-with-spicy-peanut-sauce/ but wanted something simpler so I used my Thai paste I'd made for my curry (see curry paste blog entry).

My ten month old baby loved these (if you're giving them to babies bear in mind when you add chilli to your Thai paste/ and sweet chilli sauce). 

We think these would be good for a BBQ but bake in the oven first and reheat them on the BBQ later, as they'll fall apart and potato won't cook!

Ingredients:

2 sweet potatoes 

1 400g can chick peas

2-3tbsp green Thai curry paste (I used my own but you could easily use some from a jar)

2-3 tsp sweet chilli sauce (to taste)

1 egg

Preheat oven at 180°C

Method

1. Finely grate the sweet potatoes. If you have a food processor with a grater function, definitely use it. 

2. Roughly mash the chick peas - I actually whacked these through the F.P. grater too.

3. Beat the egg and combine it with the grated potato, mushed chickpeas, Thai paste and chilli sauce. Mix really well, the combination of the egg and chickpeas should be making it hold together fairly well.

4. Form into patties, I made six burgers with this recipe. I used my crumpet rings placed on a greased baking tray to form them, and cooked them in the rings (remember to grease rings too) but equally I think you could use floured hands to form them into patties. 

5. Place in oven and bake until golden brown - this took about 35mins. 

6. Serve alone or in a bun.

Lazy Dauphinoise

I love Dauphinoise potatoes. Love them. So do my husband and ten month old. However they can take ages painstakingly finely chopping and arranging potatoes then cooking them slowly. 

I wondered tonight if it was possible to speed the process up... I also wondered if it was possible to include parsnips (we have many). This was the result.

I used:

700g white potatoes (peeled)

175g parsnips (peeled) optional

60g butter

150ml double cream

Some milk (no more than 50ml, probably less)

Cast iron roasting tin (Le Creuset)

Prep 10-15 min

Cook 50-60 min

Preheat oven to 190°C fan

1. Pop the cast iron dish on the hob. Add half the butter and heat gently until butter is melted.

2. Finely slice the potatoes, do this however you like. Your food processor might have a mandolin setting, or the side of your grater, or a cheese slice, or a knife. They don't have to be neat, just do them quickly. Potatoes can blacken if left sliced too long. I couldn't mandolin the parsnips so I used a knife for them. 

3. Whack the potato (and parsnip) slices  into the buttery dish and stir with a flat spatula (I used a wooden one) to try and get as much coated as you can. Pour over the cream and stir again. Add a little milk if it doesn't mix well enough or you feel you need more liquid to get better distribution of butter and cream. Pat down the potato (and parsnip) slices so the top appears flat.

4. Melt the remaining 30g butter in microwave or over a bowl of hot water. Use a pastry brush to coat the top slices with butter.

5. Bake in oven for 50min to 1hr. Potatoes should be soft and golden brown with the thin edges of potato slices just catching.

6. Eat immediately. We had it with chicken wrapped in bacon and fresh veg!