Friday 27 January - Rather a Naughty Friday Meal

Friday, and was Bob returning from a week away at an unspecified time. As he's been living off fish and chips and cup soups for a week, I thought it would be nice to cook something not quite so 'diety' for the evening.
We decided on Thai Chicken Curry - the bad aspect of this obviously being the coconut milk, although we did dilute this in the cooking process. I figure that every so often you need to eat something that you fancy! I'm afraid a handful of cashews also found their way in at the end - it has to be done!

We made the curry paste - I used the coriander stalks in the paste, and saved the leaves for adding to the finished dish. Wasn't sure about how fresh the shrimp paste was, not something you can do the 'sniff test' on, so we just bunged it in anyway. I grated the galangal and lemon grass before adding to the processor as I've found they sometimes stay in one piece regardless.

I dry fried the chicken then added the fresh curry paste and the tin of coconut milk along with some water. The paste was pretty hot due to Georges insistance that I use at least 10 whole birds eye chillis - I don't really see the point of eating thai curry that isn't hot though so went along with his plan . As it started cooking it made my eyes water though! The mixture was left to simmer, and then 5 minutes before it was ready I added some raw mange tout to warm through and cook slightly. Two bunches of chopped coriander, some fish sauce and lime juice went in right at the end, along with a handful of toasted cashew nuts.

This was served with some steamed thai rice, and a salad of sliced cucumber left to marinate in grated ginger, salt, sugar and rice wine vinegar - this is drained and a tiny drizzle of sesame oil over the top before serving.

For afters we had made another batch of mango sorbet, but this time added the juice from three passion fruit which sharpened it up a bit, and yet another tin of lychees - our new favourite thing.