I love Thai food. It is my favorite next to Mexican. I shied away from cooking it at home for a long time. The ingredients looked too exotic and I thought it would be difficult. Fine Cooking Magazine had a great section on stir frying rice noodles a year ago. It was a great introduction to SE Asian cooking. My favorite dish is Pad Thai. I’ve tried a couple of different recipes and I want to try it with tamarind paste. I’m going to try Pim’s recipe soon.

I’ve also becoming interested in Thai curry. I used to eat at the Mandalay Cafe in Seattle. They had an awesome Burmese curry. But alas, they have closed. I came across a Goan Fish Stew from Food and Wine. It is quite tasty and easy to make on a work night. I have used both tilapia and shrimp.

I did not realize how easy it is to make a curry. Ms Glaze had a very interesting looking Yellow Thai Curry on her blog. The ingredients looked just right so I gave it a try tonight.

First a quick trip to my local market which has a good supply of Asian food – Shoreline Central Market. I love to go there and search through the shelves for ingredients. I knew they carried lime leaves, thai basil, galangal, and fresh lemongrass. Unfortunately, I didn’t know what shrimp paste looked like. I did find a jar but I was a turned off by the plastic purple color on the jar. I should have got it. It was what I needed. I ended up having to substitute anchovy paste.

It was very easy to make. I used a food processor to grind the ingredients for the paste. The aroma of the paste frying brought my hubby into the kitchen. I can not find langoustines here in the NW so I used local rock shrimp and squid. The squid was really good in this curry. I’ll make this one again.

By the way, it goes great with a NW Riesling.