I love any excuse to bring out my mortar and pestle and this recipe is totally worth the effort of making from scratch. There’s nothing like pounding away your stress and seeing the myriad of ingredients slowly blend into a thick, coarse, brilliantly green paste flecked with spice and herbs.
I learnt this recipe at a cooking school in Chiang Mai, Thailand a couple of years ago and it’s as close as you’ll get to the real thing. The most laborious thing about making this dish is finding all the ingredients, and of course having the patience to pound the paste in a mortar and pestle. You could of course cheat and use a food processor, but I maintain you won’t get the same satisfaction with the end result.
