On our vacation to Thailand a few years ago, we spent one of our days in Chiang Mai at the Thai Farm Cooking School. Some of the dishes we made were really delicious and frankly quite easy (if somewhat challenging to find all of the ingredients in the DC metro area).

After visiting NoVa's Eden Center this past weekend and finding many of the Thai specific ingredients (the center is Vietnamese, but the ingredients are very similar), we decided to make a large batch of yellow curry paste (my favorite type of curry, and conveniently, the only one for which all of the ingredients were available).

While the curry paste recipe (follows) from the Thai Farm Cooking school booklet is only for a 1-2 serving sizes, I multiplied the recipe many times over to make a huge batch that, hopefully, will last forever in the freezer. Below I've included the recipe amounts I actually used (14x original), with the original sizes in [brackets] on the same line for easy reference. Feel free to make as large or as small of a batch as you'd like.

Thai Curry

Serves 1-2:

1/3 cup of yellow curry paste (recipe follows)
1/4 lb of chicken breast, lightly pounded and sliced (substitute tofu or shrimp for vegetarian/pescetarian dish)
1 cup coconut milk
3/4 cups water, more as needed to reach your preferred consistency.
1 cup diced potatoes
1/3 cup yellow or white onion, cut into wedges
1 sprig of spring onion
1.5 Tbsp fish sauce (use soy sauce for vegetarian option)
1 tsp sugar
1/4 tsp salt

Put half of coconut milk in a pot and heat until boiling. [consider cooking paste first to open up the flavors]

Add curry paste, cook for a few minutes.

Add water, potatoes, onions, and the rest of the coconut milk, bring back to a simmer.

Add protein and cook, stirring frequently, until chicken is cooked through.

When potatoes and your protein are done, season with fish/soy sauce, sugar, and salt.

Add spring onions.

Serve with steamed rice.

Preparation of Curry Paste

42* dried red chiles**, soaked in cold water for 20 minutes, seeded/de-ribbed, and lightly chopped [original: 3]
28 cloves garlic, lightly chopped [original: 2 cloves]
14 Tbsp = 3/4 cup chopped shallots (about 3 medium shallots) [original: 1 Tbsp]
14 Tbsp = 3/4 cup chopped lemongrass (about 4 stalks) [original: 1 Tbsp]
14 tsp = 1/3 cup peeled, chopped galagal (Thai ginger) [original: 1 tsp]
14 tsp = 1/3 cup peeled, chopped ginger [original: 1 tsp]
14 tsp = 1/3 cup peeled, chopped fresh turmeric [original: 1 tsp]
14 tsp yellow curry powder (like the kind in your grocery store aisle) [original: 1 tsp]
3.5 tsp toasted cumin seeds [original: 1/4 tsp]
3.5 tsp toasted coriander seeds [original: 1/4 tsp]

• Technically, I only used 37 peppers, or the amount in one large bag. I think this is fine.
  ** We used the Puya pepper because it looked like the peppers we remember using in Thailand. I would NOT recommend using the smaller wrinklier dried red peppers (which I think are dried birds eye peppers), as these would probably be way too hot.

Put all ingredients in food processor. Blend until smooth, stopping periodically to scrape down sides and let the motor rest. You will find that the ingredients will be a bit too dry to blend well at first, but after they break down more they will become wet enough to blend into a nice, smooth paste. Remember, your curry is essentially just this paste mixed with coconut milk, so the smoother your paste, the smoother the final product. I can only imagine that the modern Thai housewife with enough means to purchase a food processor is eternally grateful, as the old school method of mortal and pestle is probably pretty tiresome (though great for catching a husband, as our Thai cooking instructor reminded us!).