Thai Seafood Curry

Spicy Thai Curry w/ Coconut Milk

Servings: 6-8 | Prep Time: 20 mins | Cook Time: 30 mins

How to make authentic, spicy Thai seafood curry. An assortment of fish, shrimp, mussels, and squid give wonderful flavor and texture while herbs and spices add to the aroma of the curry. Coconut milk, kaffir lime leaves, Thai peppers, lemongrass, galangal, garlic, and ginger make a rich curry base. Pickled gouramy fish paste and shrimp paste add pungency and complexity. For the fish, you may use tilapia or swai, both often used in Thai cooking, or any other firm white flesh fish fillets. If mussels aren't available, use clams instead... better yet, use them both!

When buying fish sauce, we like a Thai brand fish sauce that doesn't have monosodium glutamate (MSG) listed as an ingredient. If you're sensitive to MSG, watch out for hydrolyzed vegetable protein too. It's just another form of glutamate. Even if you're not sensitive to MSG, we find that some brands use too much MSG for our liking. For this reason and for its classic flavor, we like the humble (and cheap) Lucky brand fish sauce. Every brand of fish sauce has a different sodium content, so if you're using a different brand, check its sodium content and adjust the amount of fish sauce to be used accordingly. See below for Lucky brand fish sauce sodium content.

Lucky brand fish sauce. Ingredients: Anchovy extract, salt, sugar, water.
Nutrition Facts: Serving size 1 TBSP (15 g)/ Sodium (1060 mg)
(Net: 23 fl oz) Product of Thailand

This curry is rich, pungent, spicy, a little sweet and addicting. Just spoon it over steamed jasmine rice.

• 4 tilapia or swai fillets, cut into 1" segments
   (or other firm white flesh fish, if preferred)
• 1/2 lb shrimp, peeled/deveined
• 1/2 lb live mussels, scrubbed clean
• 1 lb squid rings, thawed if frozen
• 2 red bell peppers, cut into 1"x2" chunks
• 16 green Thai peppers, or as desired,
   sliced lengthwise to expose seeds
• 4 jalapeno peppers, sliced lengthwise

Flavoring Agents
• 4 stalks lemongrass, cut into 3" segments
• 6 slices galangal, 1/4" slices
• 8 kaffir lime leaves, fresh,
   hand crumpled to release oils

Soup Ingredients
• 2 cans coconut milk, 13.5 oz ea
• 1 cup water
• 2 bottles clam juice, 8 oz each
• 8 TBSP lime juice, fresh squeezed
• 1/8 cup fish sauce
• 2 TBSP green thai curry paste
• 2 TBSP garlic, minced
• 2 TBSP ginger paste
• 1 TPSP shrimp paste
• 1 TBSP pickled gouramy fish paste
• 3-4 TBSP sugar, as desired

Combine all soup ingredients into large pot. While bringing to boil, add all flavoring agents. Bring to boil then turn down heat to simmer. Simmer 10 minutes to allow flavoring agents to infuse the soup. Then using a slotted spoon, sift out and discard lemongrass, galangal, and kaffir leaves, keeping just the soup.

(Lemongrass, galangal, and kaffir leaves are great as flavoring agents but are tough, fibrous and not easily digestible, so it's better not to serve them at all than have to warn people not to eat them.)
Add Thai peppers and jalapeno peppers. Reheat to boiling and simmer for 3 minutes to allow peppers to infuse the soup. Add red bell peppers and mussels. Reheat to boiling then add all other seafood and cook another 3 minutes. Turn off heat.
Serve seafood curry immediately. Goes great with jasmine rice. Enjoy!