Thai prawn curry with fragrant rice, cucumber salad and peachy dessert

As promised quite a while ago now, here is one of the recipes from my Cooking Around the World course. This was, obviously, Thai week and went down well, even with my fish hating hubby! There's a lot of ingredients but don't let that put you off by any means as it's actually fairly simple, just a tiny bit time consuming with all the chopping (any helpers you can draft in for prep will only be to your benefit) but it's definitely worth it!

Curry

·         1 stalk of lemongrass

·         ½ fresh red chilli

·         1 clove of garlic

·         A bunch of fresh coriander

·         1 jarred red pepper in oil

·         ½ heaped teaspoon tomato puree

·         ½ tablespoon fish sauce

·         1 tablespoon soy sauce

·         ½ teaspoon sesame oil

·         1cm piece of fresh ginger

·         Handful of sugar snap peas

·         3-4 oz small cooked prawns

·         1.3 400g tin of coconut milk

Rice

·         ½ mug of basmati rice

·         Olive oil

·         1 mug boiling water

Cucumber salad

·         1cm fresh ginger

·         ½ tablespoon soy sauce

·         ½ tablespoon extra virgin olive oil

·         1 teaspoon sesame oil

·         Juice of ½ lime

·         Cucumber

·         Coriander

·         1/3 a chilli

Peachy dessert

·         Peaches

·         Greek yoghurt

·         Lime zest mint leaves

·         Macaroons

Cucumber salad:

Peel and grate the ginger on a serving platter and add soy sauce, olive oil and sesame oil. Squeeze in the lime juice. Peel the cucumber in long ribbons and discard the watery core. Take a small handful of coriander and finely chop the stalks. Sprinkle the stalks over the cucumber. Chop the chilli and sprinkle over. Put to one side (toss and dress when ready to eat)

Jasmine rice

Put a medium saucepan on medium heat. Add the rice, salt, a splash of olive oil and the boiling water. Cover and cook for 7 minutes, then take off the heat and leave to steam with the lid on for 7 minutes. Fluff up the rice with a fork when cooked and serve with the prawns.

Red curry

Put a frying pan on medium heat. Trim the ends and tough outer leaves on the lemongrass stalks, cut into chunks then put into a food processor with the red chilli, garlic, coriander, red peppers, tomato puree, fish sauce, soy sauce and sesame oil. (To blend better, add some of the coconut milk – approximately 3 tablespoons) Peel and add the ginger. Blitz to a paste. Drizzle some olive oil into the hot frying pan and then the curry pasta and fry for 1-2 minutes. Then add in the coconut milk and gently simmer (if not included it in the blending process). Gently simmer and add seasoning if required. Add sugar snap peas and prawns. Cook for a couple of minutes. To serve, scatter with coriander leaves.

Peachy dessert

Add some peach slices to a bowl. Add Greek yoghurt and grate over some lime zest. Tear a few mint leaves and serve with almond macaroons.