Wow look!

So Katie also decided to cook Thai green veggie curry too, and didn't she make a great job of it? She says it was really yummy and she enjoyed making it - proper cooking apparently :)

I am so delighted that the recipe worked for her and the effort was worth it.

Thai Green Veggie curry

Serves 2

Around 600g of frozen mixed vegetables

1 lime

1 tin coconut milk

2 cloves of garlic, peeled

1 small piece of fresh ginger about the size of your thumb.

1 onion, peeled

1.5 tsp Thai Spice Mix (in the Spice aisle, made by Schwartz)

1 supermarket pack of fresh coriander

1 supermarket pack of fresh mint

2 tbs light soy sauce

White rice – value is fine

This is a simple version of my usual recipe and will teach you a bit about making a spice paste and how to cook rice.

Making a paste without a food processor or pestle and mortar is slightly tricky but this comes pretty close. Fresh herbs are essential here though, Thai curries sing with fresh herb and citrus flavours so don't even think about using dried. Soy sauce comes in two types – light and dark. Ideally you want light soy sauce for this. Light is for flavour, dark is for colour. But if you can only get dark, use that.

Vegetarian dishes are good when the pennies are a bit tight. The very cheapest way is to use a pack of frozen mixed vegetables or buy fresh from a local market if there is one. Otherwise haunt the produce section of the supermarket and scoop up any 'Whoops!' (have a banana!) or 'reduced to clear' bargains. Technically you could make this with just a single vegetable, although I wouldn't really recommend it. However if that's all you can afford then so be it. It would work ok with cauliflower. I'd try to avoid using just sweetcorn though, the plumbing may not withstand it.

Make the paste:

You need the grater for this. For quite a lot of grating. Use the big holes for the onion, finer ones for everything else.

Halve the onion then grate it to a slush, tip the slush into a bowl.

Peel the garlic and grate into the bowl. There's really no need to peel the ginger, despite what lots of recipe books say, just cut off the dry ends and grate it straight into the bowl.

Add the grated zest of the lime and then squeeze in as much juice as you can, it helps if you stick a fork into the lime as you squeeze.

Add the soy sauce and a pinch of salt.

Add 1.5 tsp of the spice mix – anyone else doing this can add more if you like it quite spicy.

Remove the leafy bit of the coriander from the stalks and chop the stalks as finely as you can. Add the chopped stalks to the bowl.

Pick off the mint leaves, finely chop and add to the bowl and throw the stalks away.

Stir everything together until it is well mixed. If you have a rolling pin, or a mug, or a beer bottle or - well you get the idea - using the end to give everything a really good bash about in the bowl wouldn't hurt at this point.

Cook the rice:

White rice is almost always cooked 2:1 so 2 measures of water to 1 of rice. But small amounts of rice are a bit tricky and leftover rice freezes well plus it's as easy to cook a whole mugful as half. So I'd recommend cooking a whole mug of rice in two mugs of water then freeze any leftovers as soon as the rice is cool**. On zero money days a bowl of forgotten rice from the freezer reheated with some butter with a couple of fried eggs on top can feel like a nutritional hug.

Boil the kettle. Put the pan on the heat. Measure the rice first then the boiling water into a pan add a teaspoon of salt, a knob of butter and bring everything up to the boil. Stir once then reduce the heat to the lowest possible, clap a lid on the pan and leave for about ten minutes. After ten mins take a look. If the water has mostly disappeared and there are little craters/holes all over the rice, put the lid back on, turn off the heat and leave it alone. No craters... check again after another minute or so until the craters appear then put the lid back on, turn off the heat and leave it alone. It may take up to another 5 minutes depending on how fast the pan is simmering. It will now sit happily at the back of the cooker until the curry is ready.

Make the curry:

Open the tin of coconut milk and tip the contents into your widest, shallowest pan. You may have to scrape off any coconut cream clinging to the lid and sides of the tin but just and stir it in, it will melt as the liquid heats up. Bring it up to the boil and then cook briskly for five minutes to reduce it a little.

Stir in all of the spice paste and add the vegetables. Bring back to the boil then simmer and stir regularly until the veg is tender when poked with a sharp with a knife.

Serve:

Put some rice on the plate, spoon some veggie curry next to it and scatter the reserved coriander leaves over the top. This sauce is quite thin, if you prefer a thicker sauce you can grate in half a block of creamed coconut to thicken it up.

**This is very important. You must freeze any uneaten rice as soon as it is cool enough to go in the freezer. Leftover cooked rice that isn't stored properly will give you food poisoning. See here.

For a non-student version please email me for instructions at our sparkly new email address: twonerdsonescone@gmail.com

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Many thanks to Joanna for being my guest cook today :)

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J: Going to start making the recipe now! I'll let you know if I need any help :)

'Good luck xx *excited* and nervous if I'm honest - hope t works ok...'

J: Going ok so far. Do I use the whole bag of coriander/mint?

'Up to you. I always do.'

J: Okay paste done. Not sure if I chopped the coriander and mint quite fine enough

'That looks absolutely fine.'

'Without a blender or pestle and mortar the texture will always be different. Not worse, just different. The flavour will be fine though :)'

J: And here is the final product

J: Tastes great!

'Wheee!! Well done and huzzah that it tastes good too :) Thank you chick, I really appreciate it xx'

J: No problem. It was fun to make :)