Thai recipes

Sour, salty, sweet and hot, balanced at the end rather than the start. Taste and adjust after the heat is off, because lime added to a boiling pot turns bitter.

Curry pastes do most of the work and a shop-bought jar is perfectly respectable. What matters is frying the paste in the thick coconut cream until the oil splits out, which is the step that separates a fragrant curry from a flat one.

Coconut milk should never boil hard. A bare simmer keeps it smooth; a rolling boil makes it grainy.