Recipes #12 and #13 of NEWrecipes52 ...

I've taken a step away from the oven and moved up to the hob with this week's recipes. Yes, recipes, plural. I've tried two new recipes for the first time this week and I've linked them together but they could easily be created separately. Let me explain ...

Recipe #12 is for home-made green curry paste. A beautifully aromatic paste, with the spicy kick of green chili, making it the perfect starting block for any delicious curry recipe.

Any recipe with ingredients that look this good, must be tasty, right? Green chillies, shallots, freshly grated ginger, garlic, lemongrass, coriander ...


Not to mention ground cumin, crushed black peppercorns and coriander seeds ...


All of which is thrown into a food processor, along with the zest and juice of a lime and a good glug of olive oil ...


And whizzed up to a wonderfully fragrant paste ...


This paste forms the base of my next NEW recipe.

Recipe #13 is for a Thai green chicken curry and uses the home-made paste which is sweetened with rich, creamy coconut milk and a garnish of coriander ...


The green curry paste needs to be fried in a little oil to release all it's wonderful flavours, then the chicken is added and cooked for a few minutes to brown ...


When the chicken begins to colour, the coconut milk and lime zest is added and allowed to simmer and thicken for around 25-30 minutes ...


With a few minutes to go, throw in some chopped coriander, a squeeze of lime juice and check for seasoning. When ready, serve with fluffy white long grain or nutty brown whole grain rice ...


Both recipes were a BIG success and bursting with flavour! I've got enough of the paste left over to make another 2 or 3 batches of curry and the good news is that it'll keep for up to 3 weeks in the fridge or can even be frozen. Bonus!

If you're interested, both the recipes I followed are on the BBC's food website and can be found here.