Reason number 453 I love living in Los Angeles: the huge variety of cuisines we have here. Whatever you want to eat — French food, Oaxacan, Tibetan, Filipino, Fusian Korean-Mexican — not only can you find it, but there’s probably a truck that will serve it to you right outside your office building. As an Angeleno and a foodie, eating, and cooking, ethnic food is second nature to me. My weekly shopping usually involves a swing through Koreatown, a stop at the Armenian markets in Glendale, or a visit to the Chinese supermarkets in the San Gabriel Valley. So when it came time to choose a dish for Project Food Blog’s second challenge, Cooking outside your Comfort Zone, I was a bit flummoxed.
I could have tried to discover some cuisine or microregion I hadn’t actually cooked (“Hmm, I’ve never tasted the cuisine of Chad!”), or gone for broad irony (“After a visit from my mother in law, I’ve determined that nothing is more foreign than the cuisine of the Southern United States!”), but in the end I decided to go for an old favorite: Thai Green Curry.
We eat Thai food a lot. We’ve sought out Thai street festivals, upscale Thai restaurants, and neighborhood takeout joints. I, always looking for the next thing, am eager to try a different dish every time — Tom Ka Gai, Larb, Mee Krob. But my husband always orders the same thing: green curry. He’s ordered it in fancy Thai restaurants, Japanese restaurants inexplicably, serving Thai food, takeout lunch buffets, and classic Thai joints in Thai town. He’s probably at least eaten a hundred different versions of green curry in the 12 years I’ve known him. I’ve tried to make it, using the Thai Kitchen curry paste I found in the supermarket and a can of coconut milk, but the flavors weren’t there. I knew if I could make a good, authentic, green curry, my husband would love me forever. (I hope he’ll love me forever anyway, but I figured a good green curry wouldn’t hurt).
And what’s more, this harried cook went way outside her comfort zone in the preparation. Instead of my usual MO, which is all about maximum flavor in minimum steps (and minimal dirty dishes!) I decided to strive for true authenticity, which meant a shopping excursion in North Hollywood, and pounding my homemade curry paste by hand in a granite mortar and pestle, the way a true Thai cook would do it. After perusing several recipes on the internet, I decided to go for this one by the lovely Pim Te. First, Pim actually IS Thai, which helps, I think, second, she says everyone else is doing it wrong (which in my mind, is always a market for true authenticity), and third, she lives in a major metropolitan area in California, which means we’re likely to have access to similar grocery items.
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