Thai food delivers maximum flavour at minimum cost - zesty, fresh, intense, with a counter-balanced richness and good range of textures. I am very fond of it to say the least - I love its pants off.
Cooking really good, cheap Thai food is dependent on a few main variables. The first is your provedore - you need a good Thai or Vietnamese grocer nearby (or at a pinch Chinese) Thainatown, aka Campbell St in Haymarket, Sydney is my favourite shopping hub. Pontip at 78a Campbell is the original and the best. You've always got the best fresh seasonal herbs, which don't cost you $2+ a bunch. You can easily walk away with a week's worth of greens for under $10. Not to mention the fruit and vegetables, fresh tamarind and green peppercorns, green paw paw, I could go on forever.
The other thing Thai really hangs on is the quality of your recipes. Because it involves the delicate balance of huge flavour contrasts it is easy to screw up on proportions of ingredients, so it's a bit like baking - best to be precise. My favourites tend to come from Martin Boetz's Longrain cookbook. This one is an exception, largely due to it's simplicity. It sprung out of a good brand of tinned red curry paste I had in the pantry, some cheap turkey chops I came across at Woolies and the memory of a dish I once ate at Spice I Am - my other favourite Thai hub in Surry Hills, Sydney.
400g or so turkey chops (Cheap from Woolworths, otherwise use chicken thigh fillets)
1 large onion, thinly sliced
4 cloves garlic, chopped
1/2 bulb fennel or 4 sticks celery, thinly sliced
1 cup green beans, topped and tailed and cut in half
1 bunch coriander, roughly chopped
1 small tin red curry paste
2 tablespoons fish sauce
1 cup fresh or 1 drained tin unsweetened chopped pineapple
300mL can coconut cream (Go for Ayam brand, many other brands aren't real coconut cream - but the pulverised coconut that's left over after the cream has been extracted. This is tasteless crap. You'll know it's decent if you open the tin and it sticks to the lid.)
Olive oil, salt, pepper, chilli to taste
Rub turkey chops in 1/2 tsp salt, a few good cracks of pepper and a dribble of olive oil.
Heat a griddle pan, heavy based cast iron saucepan, grill, or whatever approximation of this you have as hot as it will possibly go. Add turkey, cook for about 2-3 minutes on each side until nicely browned but not burnt. Leave on a plate topped with paper towels, covered in alfoil.
Fry onion and garlic in about 2 tbsp olive oil on medium heat for around 2 minutes. Add fennel, stir for another 2 minutes, then add red curry paste. Fry for another 2 minutes or until nicely aromatic, then add coconut cream, beans and fish sauce. Reduce to a simmer, cook for about 10 minutes or until the beans are just soft, but still bright green.
Slice turkey into strips and add to the curry along with the pineapple. Cook on medium heat for another minute. This is where I'd taste it to see if you need more chilli. Adding it earlier on is just asking for trouble with red curry - as the heat develops as it cooks. Add some more fish sauce if it needs it too.
Once it's spicy and salty enough for your liking, serve it on rice, topped with the coriander. Soft steamed brown rice is what I'd go for - the curry's a bit rich, you want something clean tasting. Otherwise, any other kind of steamed rice would be fine.
Serves 4 and freezes well, minus the coriander
You can make great rice in little $10 ceramic rice cookers you can get from Chinatown, or any good chinese grocer. Mine looks like this.
When steaming brown rice, I swear by par-boiling it first. I add 2 cups of rice to my steamer, add 5 cups of water, then boil it for about 5 minutes. Then I drain off the water, add 3 cups of water to my steamer, bring it to the boil, stirring, then simmer it with the lid on until all of the water is absorbed.
If you're steaming white rice, skip the pre-boil stage, wash your rice a few times first to get rid of the extra starch, mix in about 2 tsp olive oil, then add 1 1/2 cups of water for every cup of rice. Bring to the boil, stirring, then leave it alone with the lid on at a simmer, for about 10 minutes or until cooked.
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