I was thinking 'Thai' when I first made this dish but when I finished it I realised it was just a thought. I did have galangal, coconut milk and fresh basil amongst my ingredients, but I had neither lemon grass nor kaffir limes, both of which would have helped to give the dish a more Thai-like taste. Note that I don't use the word 'authentic' here, even though the context might appear to merit it. I don't like using that word in relation to cooking. I feel that, at best, it implies a view that is a bit too conservative for my tastes. At worst, it's meaningless. It seems to me that it is a word mainly used by either culinary snobs or people involved in product promotion. But maybe I'm being a bit harsh. Being a practicing recipe-mangler, I'm bound to be biased.
If you have, or can get lemon grass, or even kaffir limes then great, chuck them in. Smash up some chopped lemon grass and a little piece of lime rind with your mortar and pestle when you're doing the curry paste. Add a couple of torn lime leaves to the cooking liquid later. If, on the other hand, you don't even have galangal, that's okay. Substitute fresh root ginger. Of course it won't taste the same but it will taste good. I'll tell you what I had and you might not find. Coriander roots. I bought a big bunch of fresh coriander, dirty roots and all, at the bazaar and I cut the roots off and washed them. I then sliced them up and smashed them into the curry paste. Was it worth it? I'm not really sure. The taste is similar to fresh coriander leaves but perhaps it survives cooking better. If you don't have roots, may I suggest adding some chopped green coriander along with the fresh basil at the end of cooking?
Ingredients
For the curry paste:
A half teaspoon of crushed or ground red chilli
A half teaspoon of cumin seed
1 teaspoon of coriander seed
6 cloves of garlic, roughly chopped
1 and a half teaspoons of chopped galangal
1 teaspoon of chopped coriander root
500-600g of courgettes
1 small onion
2 cups of coconut milk
A few sprigs of fresh basil
2 or 3 dessert spoons of oil
I level dessert spoon of sugar
Salt
1 or 2 dessertspoons of lemon juice
Roast the cumin and coriander in a hot pan for a few seconds and if you're using crushed chilli roast that too. Grind the spices together and then add the other ingredients for the paste. Mash everything well.
Chop the courgettes into two or three centimetre pieces and chop the onion finely. Heat the oil in a pan and fry the onion for a few minutes until it softens. Add the paste and stir until you can smell the spices. Add a little coconut milk to stop the paste drying out and fry for another minute. Add the coconut milk to the pan and when it starts to boil, add the salt, sugar and courgette pieces. Simmer for about twenty minutes then turn off the heat and add the chopped basil and lemon juice.
Serve the curry with boiled rice.