Forum: cooking.stackexchange.com
Tags: <curry><thai-cuisine>
Title: Whats the simplest possible spicy thai curry?
Question: I love massaman, green curry, red curry, yellow curry, etc.   Can any of these be made quickly at home with only 4-5 ingredients?

Answers:
sents: text: Yes, you will need to buy a pre-made curry paste if you want to get anywhere near 5 ingredients.
text: Mae Ploy is a reputable brand.
answer_details: author: cooking.stackexchange.com/users/1393/Michael Natkin
score: 9
sents: text: I think @roux is generally right, curries are like mexican moles, they have lots of spices and are fairly complex.
text: But I do think there are some short-cuts.
text: The most important components in a curry are sweetness, creaminess, heat, citrus, salt, and depth.
text: I don't know
text: if by simple you also mean you want to use common ingredients, or just 'few' ingredients.
text: This is what I would use if I only had common ingredients:
text: Coconut milk, cayenne pepper, onion/garlic/ginger, lemon/lime juice, salt/pepper, sugar/honey.
text: I'd also add basil/cilantro/jalapeno for green, tumeric/cumin for yellow, ketchup/tomato paste/chili powder for red.
text: If you have them, the traditional ingredients you're trying to replicate are lemongrass, lime-leaf, red or green chiles, and fish sauce (or soy sauce).
answer_details: author: cooking.stackexchange.com/users/1443/Ocaasi
score: 5
sents: text: To directly answer your question: no, you can't.
text: However, you could prepare a curry paste at home and then refrigerate it.
text: In my experience, they can last for a month without issue.
text: This recipe is good for 2-3 woks worth of curry noodles, you can also add coconut milk on the wok towards the end.
text: 1-2 fresh chillies, deseeded 4-5 cloves of garlic 1 tsp ground ginger 1 tsp ground cumin 0.5
text: tsp turmeric 0.5 tsp ground cardamom 0.25 tsp ground cloves 0.25 tsp ground cinnamon 1 tablespoon ground coriander 3 tablespoons soy sauce Put everything in a food processor and blitz.
text: There's your curry paste.
text: Extra points for adding a handfull of fresh coriander leaves, or the flesh of a mango to the mix.
answer_details: author: cooking.stackexchange.com/users/611/Carmi
score: 2
sents: text: It sure is possible to make a Thai curry with 5 ingredients.
text: All of the coconut based curries have the same basic ingredients.
text: Jungle curry contains stock instead of coconut cream and has a few more ingredients such as green peppercorns.
text: The 5 basic ingredients to an authentic Thai curry are: Curry paste:
text: Most authentic (not westernised) brand is Maesri .
text: Other brands lack the flavour punch that defines Thai curries.
text: Coconut cream
text: : Buy the one with the highest percentage of coconut solids.
text: Milk is ok if that's the only one available but make sure you get the highest percentage.
text: Palm sugar
text: : Buy it online if you can't get it locally.
text: Do not substitute normal sugar Fish sauce: Squid brand is the best in my opinion Meat and vegetables: Use sweet vegetables for red curry and bitter vegetables for green curry See my universal curry method (adapted from David Thompson 's) for more information.
text: FYI: Most Thai people don't make the paste from scratch because it is readily available at the markets here in Thailand.
answer_details: author: cooking.stackexchange.com/users/21460/Sammy Spets
score: 1
sents: text: *birds eye chilies *onion/shallots *lemon grass *coconut milk/cream *tumeric powder (and the leaves if you can find it) optional: ginger/ginger powder and tamarind paste.
text: You can blitz all the ingredients into a blender
text: make it into paste if you want a thick, concentrated and intense flavour or just slice the ingredients for lightly flavoured curry.
text: Malaysian yellow curry Similar ingredients to Thai cooking.
text: Malaysia is a multi-cultural society, the cuisine depicts Malay, Chinese and Indian.
text: This recipe is an 'everyday' Malay dish.
text: Using a ready-made paste is rare.
text: Called 'masak lemak'.
text: Works with meat, fish and veg.
text: However most Malays cook the meat and veg together.
text: Eg.
text: yellow chicken curry with carrots, potato
text: (oh yes, potato is a veg in South-East Asia!)
text: , cabbage, young mango etc.
answer_details: author: cooking.stackexchange.com/users/39541/Orchard Blues
score: 1
sents: text: Let's look at a few from-scratch, simple options.
text: Assuming you have salt, water, sugar anyway, so not counting them.
text: "some Umami source" = shrimp paste, soy sauce, MSG, whatever you prefer.
text: A basic but tasty tom kha base can be made with coconut milk, lime leaves, lemongrass, galangal, chile peppers, shallot, lime juice, some umami source - thicker versions can be served like a curry, and you get the base sauce from 8 ingredients.
text: Add a protein and/or mushroom (oyster or shiitake work great), maybe some beansprouts.
text: The simplest "real" curry base would be gaeng kua - paste of chilies, garlic, galangal, lemongrass, cilantro root, shallots, lime zest.
text: You'll need coconut milk, an umami source, and lime leaves and juice.
text: So, 10 for the base (lime gives you zest and juice.
text: Use an organic lime!).
text: Protein, and optionally bamboo sprouts, pineapple, and veg of choice.
text: One very simple but tasty coconut milk based curry is south indian Olan and the variations you can make of it - just good coconut milk, chile peppers, fresh or frozen curry leaves (not curry powder, not dried curry leaves or leaf powder!)
text: , cooked black eye (or kidney) beans, and some diced squash/gourd/pumpkin (original uses winter melon, but it is also great with eg a mix of hokkaido squash and zucchini.)
text: - and you have a great soup or rice accompaniment depending on how thick you make it.
text: EDIT:
text: Thinking about it, getting some fresh/frozen curry leaves is definitely worth it if possible.
text: As said, they have nothing to do with the spice called "curry powder" nor do they taste of it - but they tend to feature in a lot of curries built on very simple spice combinations.
text: Olan, some types of Thoran, simple versions of keralan vegetable ishtoo (stew ;) ), some other south indian curries, some basic indonesian ones (they use a herb called Daun Salam, similar or even identical to it), various implementations of the great mangalorean pineapple curry - all using curry leaves and all getting a complex flavour from very few spices.
answer_details: author: cooking.stackexchange.com/users/35312/rackandboneman
score: 1
sents: text: No.
text: Proper curries have far, far more than five ingredients.
text: It is possible to make something sort of kind of similar in the sense that some shrimp and fish served in a broth is like a bouillabaisse, but really it will not be the same.
text: If you really want to go that route, go to a decent supermarket that focuses on Asian foods and buy something pre-made.
answer_details: author: cooking.stackexchange.com/users/None/
score: 0

Summary of the answers:
A bought or pre-made curry paste can bring the necessary ingredients below 5, but a simple curry can be made with coconut milk, cayenne pepper, onion/garlic/ginger, lemon/lime juice, salt/pepper, and sugar/honey.
To make a quick and easy curry, make or buy a curry paste and keep it in your fridge ready for use. You can make a quick curry with a few ingredients like coconut milk, onion, garlic and ginger, and cayenne pepper.