Fragrant Penang curry with prawns and chicken

I have made many Thai curries during the course of writing this blog, sometimes made from scratch, pounding all the ingredients together in a pestle and mortar and sometimes made from a packet. They have all been delicious, as Thai food is generally, but the one common feature they share the most, is their pesky inability to be captured well in photographs. A Thai curry is a complex beast. All those ingredients and balance of flavours is not easy to illustrate in a single shot. Many times I have simply abandoned writing a post about a particularly successful meal, due to the sheer blandness of the photograph.

I like this one finally. Photography, like any creative medium, is objective and you may not agree with my choice. That's OK, but when I look at this picture, I can taste the creamy coconut back note, made fragrant and complex with the curry paste with it's heat from the chilies and sour, tangy flavours from the lemongrass and lime juice. I can imagine the crispy crunch from the caramelized dried onion topping and the salty fish sauce rounding off the sweetness of the raw sugar. I hope you can too.

Recipe : Penang curry with shrimp and chicken

1 packet of penang curry paste

1 tin coconut milk

1/2 cup cooked chicken, cut into chunks

1/2 cup raw prawns

1 bell pepper, sliced finely

6 mushrooms, halved or quartered

1 tbsp bamboo shoots in sweet chili oil or 1 tbsp sliced bamboo shoots

2 tbsp fish sauce

1 tbsp raw sugar

Juice of one lime

1 tbsp dried fried onions

Heat the coconut milk and curry paste together in a pan, stirring well until oil can be seen floating at the top.

Add the chicken, prawns, mushrooms, peppers and bamboo shoots and stir well. Simmer over medium heat until the prawns are cooked through and add the fish sauce, sugar and lime juice to taste until you have a nice balance of sweet, sour and salty. Serve with the dried fried onions sprinkled on top. You could also add some Thai basil, mint or cilantro. We ate this like a soup, but it's more usual to serve over some steamed Jasmine rice.