Some people don't like fish, and a good way to make them like it is to put it into Thai curry, because nobody doesn't like Thai curry. The fish is red snapper, which is a fish that mostly keeps together and doesn't dissolve into gross flakes when you cook it. The curry is only a little spicy, so you can serve it to a baby.
There's nothing really crazy involved in making this; you just have to chop stuff up and then sauté i
t.Whenever you cook, you should get all the ingredients together so you have everything at hand when it's time to put it into a pan or a blender or whatever. It took me forever to find the turmeric and if I had to look for it while I was actually doing things, I would be pretty upset. Fancy people call this Mise-en-Place.
This recipe is mostly based on the one found here but I didn't have certain ingredients on hand, so it's a new recipe now.
Ingredients
1.5 pounds of fish (i used red snapper, but you could probably use anything)
1 400mL can of coconut milk
3 regular-sized jalapenos
1 large onion
1/2 tsp ground cumin
1/2 tsp turmeric
1 tsp white pepper
1 tbsp fish sauce (can be substituted by soy sauce and anchovy paste)
1 stalk lemongrass
[some garlic
some ginger (both of these are pretty much to taste)]
Thai basil for garnish
Okay so chop up the vegetables in whatever order you want. You should probably save the onion for last because cutting onions is terrible. When you chop the jalapenos, don't cut out the ribs, because that's where all the capsaicin is (or so I'm told). Also don't touch your nose after chopping up the peppers like I did, cause it's basically like macing yourself in the face. Wash your hands really thoroughly before touching any mucus membranes or anything that will touch mucus membranes in the future.
Here's what everything looks like chopped up. It doesn't have to be really precise or anything, cause this is all going into a food processor.
This is the lemongrass. The cross-section is a little spiral which is cute and might score points with someone you're trying to impress. When you're chopping it, make sure to peel the tough husk layer off the main stalk.
Okay so everything is roughly chopped. Put it in the food processor with the fish sauce and spices, and puree it into a paste.
Sometimes when you get a fish fillet from the grocery, it still has bones in it (in fact this happens to me every time i get a fish fillet). You can pluck the bones out with tweezers, or just chop off the whole stupid boney part like me.
Slice the fillets into little bite-sized pieces. If you're really cool, you can do this while the curry paste is cooking, but I'm not, so I do this between pureeing the paste and frying it.
Cover the bottom of your skillet in some kind of neutral vegetable oil (not sesame or olive). Use a decently-sized, deep skillet, not the one you cook eggs in. Set the heat high.
Once the oil is hot (flick some drops of water at it, and if it makes a really scary sound and bubbles a lot, it's ready) Pour the curry paste from the food processor cup into the oil. Stir-fry it for like a minute. It will smell so good.
Pour a good amount of coconut milk into the skillet. The recipe I found says to use the "thick" portion of the milk, but I couldn't really tell the difference so I poured 2/3 of the can in. Stir it up until it's mixed good. Reduce the heat to medium or medium-low, a simmer. Just make sure it doesn't burn.
Once the curry is mixed, Put the fish pieces in and cover them in the curry so they cook evenly. The fish is done when it's opaque.
When the fish is done, pour in the rest of the coconut milk, mix it up, then garnish with chopped cilantro. You should check with people you're serving before using cilantro. Unlike most foods, when people say they don't like cilantro, they probably aren't being a dick. There's this weird genetic thing where some people taste cilantro as caustic soap, so if someone says they don't like cilantro, don't be like "you gotta try new foods" and make them eat it cause then you're basically their abusive aunt.
Cook up some rice (you should have done this a long time ago), spoon it into a bowl, and then spoon the curry on top of that. Garnish with Thai basil (or more cilantro if you don't have Thai basil) and a lime wedge.
This is a really basic curry recipe. You can substitute fish for pretty much anything; chicken, pork, shrimp, etc.
