Living in London means that I am lucky enough to be exposed to an arreas of cultures and cuisines, one of my favourite one is Thai. I love the sweet soicy smell and the colours of its dishes, it’s such an happy cuisine and I cannot get enough of it!

So few weeks ago I decided to venture pasture new, aka do not cook Italian food for dinner, and make a Prawn Green Thai curry with coconut rice.

Well to be honest the choice of the “coconut rice” came only after I found out that the recipe of my choice only used half can of coconut milk, so I decided not to waste ut and came up with the rice option.

Obviously I decided to make the curry paste from scratch, mainly for two reasons: 1. A challenge is not a challenge if you cheat 2. I was dying to use my KitchenAid grinder!

Here is the recipe for Thai green curry with prawns and coconut rice, adapted from a Jamie Oliver recipe.

Ingredients

Curry:

½ a freshred chilli

2  tbsp sunflowers oil (the recipe uses 1 tbsp of groundnut oil and 1 tbsp sesame oil, but I did nit have them)

180g raw king prawns, peeled

½ x 400ml tin of coconut milk

Handful of mange tout

Handful of baby corn

½ lime

Coconut rice

1 cup basmati rice

1 cup coconut milk

1 cup water

Green curry paste:

2 stalks of lemongrass

4 spring onions

3 fresh green chillies

4 cloves of garlic

A thumb-sized piece of fresh root ginger

A large bunch of fresh coriander

1 tsp coriander seeds

8 dried lime leaves

2 tblsp soy sauce

1 tblsp fish sauce

Preparation

First I made the curry paste as it can be made well in advance. The making of the curry is very fast, so I made it when we were ready for dinner.

I peeled the lemongrass stalks, disposed of the outer leaves (basically the yelloish hard ones on the outside) and crushed the stalks by bashing them a few times with the heel of my hand. I trimmed and cut i  hald the spring onions, halved and de-seeded the green chillies and peeled and chopped the garlic and ginger.

I put everythig in my KitchenAid grinder with the coriander, coriander seeds, lime leaves, soy souce and fish sauce and wizzed until Imhad a smooth paste. The smell was to dies for so fresh, spicy and Summary, simply amazing!

I set aside few leaves of coriander to use as garnish for the curry.

Then I made the coconut rice, this has to rest once cooked and he curry can be made while the rice is resting.

I put the basmati rice, coconut milk and water in a soucepan, broughht it to boil and the lowered to the lowest heath and let it cook. Once cooked I remived it fro  the hob and leave it to rest on my kitchen counter.

Finally I made the curry!!!

I cut the baby corns lengthways with a knife and finely chopped the red chilli. I put the chilli to one side and I used it to garnish the curry with the coriander.

I placed the wak on very high heath and poured the oil only when the wok was very hot. I swirled the oil around, added the prawns and covered with a splatter guard to avoid having oil all over my cooker and me! I let it cook for few seconds and added the baby corn and curry paste and let it stir-fry untill the prawns were nicely cooked and everything was coated with the curry souce.

Finally I poured in the coconut milk and addede the mange tout, I stirred all together, brought it to boil and let it simmer until the curry was reduced to a nice consistency. Once it looked of the right consistency I squeezed the juice of the half lime into it and the curry was ready!!

I poured the curry and the fragrant fluffy coconut rice in two bowls and sprinkled the curry with the coriander and chilly. Dinner was ready and I was very pleased with the outcome and mostly the delicious and sublime smell that had spread around my flat.

The recipe is for two people, but really it is enough food for three big portions, in fact we had leftovers, but I am going tell you how I used it another time… Stay tuned!

If you want to make this recipe and share it on your social media please tag me using @prepandproperrecipes and using the tag #prepandproperrecipes