What is a mild curry paste?
In this brief guide, we will answer the question “What is a mild curry paste?”, and give you tips on how to reduce the spiciness in a Thai curry. We will also mention how to use Thai curry paste.
What is a mild curry paste?
Massaman curry paste is believed to be the mildest curry paste because it does not use as many chilies as the other types of curries. It is basically a mix of Thai and Indian style curries. It is sweet, savory and very rich.
Even yellow curry paste is relatively mild as it does not have a lot of heat in it. The main flavor profile of yellow curry paste is turmeric. However, curry paste can be made spicy or mild by increasing or decreasing the amount of chilies used in making it.
Alternatively, the amount of cayenne pepper or chili powder used can be reduced to make the curry paste mild.
How do I make my Thai curry less spicy?
In order to make your Thai curry less spicy, you need to:
- Add lemon: Lemon brings acidity in the curry while making it less spicy. Squeeze out a tablespoon or two of lemon juice and add it to the curry.
- Add vinegar: Vinegar works in a similar way to lemon juice, by increasing the acidity it decreases the spiciness.
- Add sugar: Sugar always works really well by balancing out the spice levels. Keep adding sugar until you believe the spiciness has been reduced significantly.
- Add sweeteners: Alternatively, you can use honey or brown sugar as well.
- Add coconut milk: A lot of Thai curries use coconut milk in their recipes anyway so if your curry is too spicy, consider adding more coconut milk. It will make the curry mild while not changing the flavor a lot.
- Add cream: Adding cream is another great way to reduce spiciness especially if your curry also contains tomatoes.
- Add more vegetables: Adding a bunch of vegetables will help with the spiciness because vegetables that are abundant in starch soak up all the flavors.
- Add yogurt: Yogurt is used in a lot of Indian curries. Feel free to add as much yogurt as you need to bring down the heat levels of curry.
- Serve with a cooling condiment: You can also use a cooling condiment to go with a curry so that it feels less spicy and is easy on the stomach. In particular, mint yogurt raita goes very well with curries.
- Use ketchup: Ketchup can be used in tomato based curries as ketchup has sweetness to it.
How do I use Thai curry paste?
You can use Thai curry paste for a bunch of dishes. Most common dish made with Thai curry paste is of course curry, as the name suggests.
In order to use Thai curry paste, it needs to be cooked first before adding other ingredients. Curry paste is a blend of raw aromatic spices mixed together with vegetable oil. In order for them to make a flavorful curry, they need to be cooked beforehand. If you eat raw curry paste, it may taste bad.
Fry the curry paste with a dash of oil in a pan before adding meat and vegetables. Or just simmer the curry paste in water or stock for a while before adding other ingredients. This ensures that the spices burst out their flavor.
In addition, you never know where the raw spices have been while they are being processed. They might as well contain some bacterial spores which need to be killed by heating them.
Some people also suggest microwaving the curry paste as it is over rice for example. If this works for you, go ahead.
Our suggestion is to properly cook the paste before you go ahead with adding other ingredients to it for best results.
Find out what side dishes you can use with Thai curry here.
Other FAQs about Curry that you may be interested in.
What can I add to curry paste?
What can I use if I don’t have curry paste?
What does Thai green curry sauce taste like?
Conclusion
In this brief guide, we answered the question “What is a mild curry paste?”, and gave you tips on how to reduce the spiciness in a Thai curry. We also mentioned how to use Thai curry paste.
