Green Curry Paste (Nam Prik Gaeng Khiew Wan)

Ingredients

Equipment Needed

• •Heavy granite mortar and pestle (krok hin), at least 7 inches diameter
• •Dry pan for toasting spices
• •Small sharp knife for slicing lemongrass and zesting makrut

Instructions

1. 1

   Toast and pound dry spices

   Toast the coriander seeds and cumin seeds in a dry pan over medium heat for 2 to 3 minutes, shaking the pan, until fragrant and slightly darkened. Don't walk away. Spices go from toasted to burnt in seconds. Let them cool completely. Add the toasted coriander, cumin, and white peppercorns to the granite mortar. Pound to a fine powder. This takes about 3 minutes. You should see no whole seeds remaining. These dry spices form the aromatic backbone of the paste: coriander brings floral warmth, cumin brings earthiness, white pepper brings sharp heat that's different from chili heat. Grind them fresh and you'll understand why pre-ground spices taste like dust.

   Ajarn always said: dry spices go first because they need the most force and the empty mortar gives you maximum impact. Once wet ingredients enter, the mortar loses traction. Hardest first. Always.
2. 2

   Add salt and fibrous aromatics

   Add the coarse sea salt to the ground spices. The salt acts as an abrasive, gripping the smooth stone and helping the pestle break down the fibrous ingredients that come next. Now add the sliced lemongrass. Pound until it's completely broken down into a fibrous paste with no identifiable rings or chunks. This will take 5 to 7 minutes and your arm will start talking to you. Keep going. Lemongrass is the most stubborn ingredient in the mortar. It provides citral, the compound responsible for that sharp lemon-herbal aroma that defines green curry. No shortcut will extract it the same way.

   Use only the tender inner part of the lemongrass: peel off the tough outer layers until you reach the pale, slightly purple core. Slice it paper-thin before it enters the mortar. Thick slices will fight you for twenty minutes and never fully break down.
3. 3

   Pound galangal and lime zest

   Add the sliced galangal once the lemongrass is fully incorporated. Pound until the galangal fibers are completely broken. Galangal is harder than ginger and more resinous. It brings a piney, almost camphor-like sharpness that lifts the paste out of one-dimensional green chili territory. Next, add the chopped kaffir lime zest. A few firm strikes to integrate it. The zest contributes intensely floral citrus oils that are unlike any other lime variety on earth. This is the ingredient that makes green curry smell like green curry. If you use regular lime zest, you'll taste the difference immediately.

   Kaffir lime zest (phiew makrut) is the skin of the bumpy makrut lime, not the juice. The juice is barely used in Thai cooking. The zest and leaves are where the magic lives. Use a microplane or a sharp knife to remove just the green outer layer, avoiding the bitter white pith.
4. 4

   Pound the chilies

   Add all the green chilies to the mortar: both the bird's eye (prik khi nu khiew) and the spur chilies (prik chi fa khiew). Pound until they're fully broken down into the paste. The two types of chili serve different purposes. Bird's eye chilies bring concentrated, searing heat. Spur chilies bring volume, green color, and a gentler warmth. Together, they create the layered heat profile of green curry: immediate bite from the bird's eye, sustained warmth from the spur. You want this pounded until no large chili pieces remain. The paste should be getting visibly green now.

   The green color of the paste comes from the fresh green chilies and the herbs. If your paste looks pale, you need more spur chilies for color. If it's not hot enough, add more bird's eye. Two different chilies, two different jobs.
5. 5

   Pound garlic and shallots

   Add the roughly chopped garlic. Pound until it disappears into the paste. Then the shallots. These release a lot of moisture, so the paste will loosen up. That's normal. Pound until the shallots are fully incorporated and no chunks remain. Garlic provides pungent sulfur compounds (allicin) that form the savory base. Shallots add sweetness and body. Together they're the workhorses of the paste, the ingredients that give it heft and depth beneath the brighter aromatics.

6. 6

   Pound cilantro roots

   Add the scrubbed, chopped cilantro roots. Pound until incorporated. Cilantro root (rak phak chi) is one of the most important and most overlooked ingredients in Thai cooking. It tastes nothing like cilantro leaves. The root is earthy, almost parsnip-like, with a concentrated herbal depth that anchors the paste. This is what separates a Thai curry paste from every other spice paste on earth. If your store sells cilantro with the roots cut off, find a different store. Asian grocers almost always sell them with roots attached.

   Scrub the roots thoroughly under running water. They come with dirt. That's fine. It means they're real. Don't peel them, just scrub. The skin has flavor.
7. 7

   Finish with shrimp paste

   Add the shrimp paste (kapi) last. Pound it in until the paste is completely homogeneous. Kapi goes last because it's soft and acts as a binder, pulling everything together into a cohesive mass. It provides umami, salinity, and a deep funky fermented quality that is the invisible foundation of Thai flavor. Without it, your paste will taste bright and herbal but hollow. With it, the paste has soul. The finished kreung tam should be a smooth, vivid green paste with a complex aroma that hits you in waves: citrus first, then chili heat, then the deep earthy funk of fermented shrimp.

   Kapi quality matters enormously. Good shrimp paste is dense, dark purple-grey, and smells intensely of the sea. If it smells rotten rather than fermented, it's bad product. Thai brands like Pantainorasingh or Tra Chang are reliable. Don't use the watery Malaysian or Indonesian versions. They're different products entirely.
8. 8

   Check paste consistency

   Run your finger through the finished paste. It should feel smooth with no gritty spice fragments, no fibrous lemongrass strands, no chili skin pieces. If you hit any of those, keep pounding. A properly finished kreung tam is silky and cohesive. It should cling to your finger, not drip off. Smell it. You should get the full arc: sharp citrus from the makrut zest and lemongrass, green chili heat, earthy cilantro root, and the deep undertow of kapi. If all those layers are present, you've built a proper kreung tam. Fai Thai, baby.

Chef Tips

• •This paste contains all nine of Ajarn McDang's essential Thai ingredients: chilies, garlic, shallots, lemongrass, galangal, kaffir lime zest, cilantro root, peppercorns, and shrimp paste. That's the entire foundation of Thai cooking in one mortar. When you understand this paste, you understand the system. Swap the green chilies for dried red ones and you have red curry paste. Add dried spices and turmeric, you're heading toward massaman or khao soi territory. The kreung tam is a framework, not a fixed formula.
• •The mortar order is non-negotiable: dry spices first (they need a dry mortar for traction), then fibrous stalks (lemongrass, galangal), then chilies, then wet aromatics (garlic, shallots, cilantro root), then shrimp paste last as a binder. Each ingredient must be fully broken down before the next enters. If you dump everything in at once, the wet ingredients cushion the dry ones and nothing breaks down properly. That's physics, not tradition for tradition's sake.
• •If you absolutely cannot find cilantro roots, use the lower stems of the cilantro bunch, the part closest to the root that's pale and thick. You'll need twice as much to approximate the flavor, and it still won't be quite right. But it's within the principles. What's NOT within the principles is leaving it out entirely. Cilantro root is the ingredient that makes this Thai and not just 'spicy green paste.'
• •One batch of this paste will make one pot of gaeng khiew wan (green curry) for four people. To use it: crack coconut cream in a hot wok until the oil separates, fry 3 to 4 tablespoons of this paste in the coconut oil until fragrant (about 2 minutes), then add your protein, thin coconut milk, fish sauce, palm sugar, Thai eggplant, and sweet basil. That's the whole dish. The paste does the heavy lifting.

Advance Preparation

• •The kreung tam stores beautifully. Refrigerate in an airtight container for up to one week, or freeze in ice cube trays for up to three months. Each cube is roughly one tablespoon, perfect for portioning.
• •Lemongrass and galangal can be sliced and frozen weeks ahead. Cilantro roots can be washed, dried, and frozen in bags. Having these prepped means the mortar work goes faster on cooking day.
• •The paste actually improves slightly after a day in the fridge as the flavors merge. Making it the night before is a smart move. The dishes this paste builds: gaeng khiew wan gai (green curry chicken), gaeng khiew wan nuea (green curry beef), gaeng khiew wan look chin pla (green curry fish balls), and gaeng khiew wan pak (green curry vegetables).

Frequently Asked Questions

Nutrition Information

1 serving (about 50g)