Minnesota Mild and the Adventure of the Thai Red Curry

I always tell the server not just mild, Minnesota mild.  We live in the Twin Cities, where we are fortunate enough to have not just Thai, but Hmong, Lao, Vietnamese, Hispanic and Ethiopian populations, all known for great cuisine.  European Minnesotans, however, are known for their uhm… challenge in encompassing the full range of international flavors.  When you want it hot, say hot to the server.  When you want it really hot, ask for “Thai Hot” and they will bring you something truly exciting.  When you want it mellow, say “mild”.  When you want something really gentle, tell the server “Minnesota Mild”.  Of course, there’s only so much they can do with a Thai Red Curry, besides just cooking your chicken and vegetables in coconut milk and lemon grass. 

Thai Red Curry is irresistible.  The scent as it arrives at the table is citrusy and spicy and deep and meaty, and then you taste it, and it is sweet and salty and hot, with heat that spans the range of heats, from the high sharp heat that bites from your first spoon full to the deep, building heat that burns more and more as you go.

I order my Minnesota Mild Thai Red Curry with my eyes open.  I know my dinner is going to punish me.  As mild as they will make it, half way through my plate, my lips will get swollen, and I just won’t be able to eat any more, no matter how much I want to.  At that point I have to make a choice.  Do I ask for a take out container or do I give the rest to my dear husband, who really does want to finish mine, mild or not?   I don’t want to give it to him, not really.  I want to eat it again for lunch. 

The foundation of the Thai Red Curry is Red Curry Paste.  When I ask for my Minnesota mild what I’m actually asking for is for the chef to add less of this ingredient, and to the extent that they can add less and still have a curry, they’re reducing the amount.  But the paste is in large part Thai birds eye chiles (prig kee nu), a very spicy little member of the capsicum family, ringing in at 50,000 to 100,000 Scoville units.  The very top performing cayenne pepper can only hope to come up to the bottom of that range.  Yow! 

I tried making Thai Red Curry at home, with purchased red curry paste, but of course I got similar results.  Too little paste, and it didn’t  have any flavor, too much and I just couldn’t eat very much.  I thought to myself, it’s those peppers. There’s more to the flavor of Thai Red Curry than just heat.  There’s so much there.  When you look at the container of commercially prepared red curry paste there’s a whole string of ingredients.  That’s when I thought of it – could I make a curry paste that had all (or most) of the flavors I love with less of the five-alarm prig kee nu mouth burn?

Of course my husband’s reaction was, “Why would you want to?” Men do not understand these things.   My husband and his friends talk about their capacity to eat hot food as if it proved something about their virility or the worth of their chosen sports team. 

I found a great recipe book by Jennifer Brennan with a Thai curry paste recipe, I cut the number of bird’s eye chiles in half, leaving the rest of the recipe just the same, I made up the curry according to the instructions in the recipe book.  It smelled wonderful, I was so happy!  Went to eat it, and it was if anything even hotter than the store bought version.  Sigh.  I wonder what Jennifer’s full bore curry paste is like.

I looked for other recipes.  I saw all kinds of variations on the Internet.  Some recipes called for 10 birds eyes, some called for 20, some called for 20 dried and another 10 fresh.  There’s a lot of variability among the ingredients.  There was a YouTube video where a pair of ladies demonstrated making a vegetarian version (no fish sauce or shrimp paste).  Some people use ground coriander, some people use ground coriander and caraway seeds (?), some people use white pepper, some use cilantro stems, some use cilantro roots, nobody uses cilantro leaves, at least not in the paste, it seems.  Some people were using a big stone mortar and pestle traditional among Thai cooks (it is amazing to see these ladies make the pestle fly – you have to figure those ladies are mighty strong after years of doing that) others using blenders or food processors.  I’m a wimp, I bought the stone mortar and pestle and used the food processor.   Some of these ingredients are like wood chips.

For instance: Galangal, or kha.  It’s related to ginger, it is an absolute necessity, nobody makes red curry paste without it.  And you practically need a saw to cut it.  When you’re choosing a kha root at the store, look for something younger looking, with more of those knob like buds.  I have no idea if these younger sections are more flavorful, but they sure are easier to cut, and you will need to cut them into chips so that your food processor or blender (or stone mortar) can handle it with good results.

Another item for a sharp knife: lemon grass.  You see it a lot more these days than you used to, and it smells great.  Like a bay leaf, in a lot of recipes you want to add it to the broth during cooking and take it out before you eat, but in red curry paste you’re going to want to peel it, cut the tough bottom stalk off, and cut it into rings like a green onion, only it is a little more like a piece of bamboo, toughness wise. There’s only going to be an inch or two of stalk that’s going to have much flavor/scent to it between the thick white stalk with no/few rings/leaves and the light/bland area above, so you are going to need a couple three stalks to get your two heaping tablespoons of slices.  Yes, you are going to need to use the knife, relying on the food processor is going to get you big unground splintery chunks in your paste. Rendering the lemon grass down to slices makes it possible for them to disappear into the rest of the ingredients.

Since the problem was that bird’s eye chiles are so hot, I thought to myself, what if I found a nice, happy, low test pepper with mellow heat and used as much by weight as the recipe called for, but with much less scovilles?  That might work.  I'd still get the fruity part of the pepper flavor, and the color, but without the burn. Trouble is, I didn’t know how much a dried bird’s eye weighed.  So I used 11 g of dried New Mexico Chiles. 

New Mexico Chiles are the ripe version of the Anaheim. They’re the chile I use in salsa fresca, they’ve got heat, but they’re manageable.  You can put in enough to get heat in every bite without killing an unsuspecting snacker with a big chunk, so they’re my go to.  Anaheims are 1,000 to 1,500  Scovilles.  So that’s what? 100 times less hot than the bird’s eyes.  I may have also undershot on the grams I used.  Looking back on it, a bird’s eye is probably only ¼ the size of a New Mexico, so if the recipe calls for 10 bird’s eyes, then I should probably have used at least 2.5 rather than 2.  But at 100 times less spicy, I could have probably used 10 without too much difficulty. 

As it works out,  my second try at Thai Red Curry Paste tasted pretty hot straight out of the food processor, but cooked up with coconut milk, lime leaves, lemon grass, nam pla, chicken and vegetables, you could not taste any heat.  Any.  It was too bland for me.   My husband and son, ever encouraging, told me they thought it was tasty and ate it up.  But my husband used the rest of the second batch of the red curry paste on his pancakes this morning. 

I’m not beaten.  I’m thinking next time Chile de Arbol, in the 15,000 to 30,000 Scoville range.  Watch this space for the further adventures of Minnesota Mild.

In addition to all the other perks you get for voting (helping to choose the leadership of this great Republic, taking an active role in shaping policy through ballot initiatives, seeing your friends and neighbors out at the polls...) there's an additional perk.  Being a registered voter puts you in the hat for one of the great free amusements of modern life: Jury Duty!

I love Jury Duty.  As a fan, and an avid observer of humanity, there is no better observation post.   The first, best show is the dance of the loud shirker as he (it is almost always a he) tries to impress on the officials of the jury pool that he is too important, too busy, and as a last resort, far too unsuitable to be seated on any jury.  I admit, I'm a terrible eavesdropper, not that this is difficult.  Loud shirker is almost always loud on his cell phone, complaining about how important he is, how busy his business is, and how he cannot be spared for such inconsequential stuff.   He will proclaim aloud how he "needs an outlet" for his electronics "for business purposes".  There are always plenty of outlets, workspace, and free wi-fi besides, all you have to do is show up a little early and claim some space.  Someone who is self employed could easily consider time in the jury pool a double payday, since you're collecting a stipend while getting work done.

Loud shirker will have loud conversations with the folks behind the desk about his work load, his importance at work, etc.  I seldom hear the other side of this conversation, it is almost always carried out at a discrete volume.  I doubt these tactics are successful since the loud shirker seldom disappears at this point.

One loud shirker I enjoyed jury selection with tried improbable answers to the lawyers questions as an exit strategy.  "No, I never believe the police's version of events."  "Yes, I always judge people based on their racial characteristics." Oddly, neither of the lawyers chose to eliminate him from the jury pool.  The one woman who did manage to get herself eliminated was just as subtle, though.  After hearing the judge instruct everyone not to discuss the case, a child molestation case, she came up to me in the hall and loudly proclaimed "I think he's guilty.  I think all child molesters should be taken out and shot."  I told her I really didn't think it was right to prejudge anyone.

One thing you should know about me.  I'm afflicted with a constipated conscience.  I can't lie.  It's downright comical when I try.  I can't cheat, either.  Bluffing makes me blush, and I feel like my hair is standing on end.  Needless to say, I am a very poor poker player.  I marched right up to someone in a uniform and asked to speak to the judge.  I told him that I had been discussing the case with another juror and then I recounted the conversation.  I explained that I hadn't meant to.  It is hard to have someone speak to you and not respond.  (Yes, I was one of those little girls who was always in trouble in kindergarten for talking in class.)  She was dismissed.  And I blame her for my being selected as an alternate.   I didn't get to do the deliberation phase.  Wah!

I love to listen to the lawyers talk about the case.  I love to listen to the testimony. Yes, I love shows like Law and Order.  No, jury duty is nothing like Law and Order.  It is a lot longer, and not nearly as interesting.  You have to pay close attention for a long, long time to notice the human drama at all.  People are embarrassed.  They don't want to bare their souls, they want to tell their story and sit down.  But I did get to see a defendant kill his own case by changing his story mid testimony, and contradicting his own lawyer.  That was the moment that I was sure he was guilty.  And I hope he really was guilty, because he really did go to jail. Again, nothing like Law and Order.

But it is important for people to show up and do the work, really listen and notice things and be the citizen jury.  When I was waiting for the bus to go in one time, I happened to be waiting with a neighbor who was a lawyer.  It was my first time, and I was nervous.  I told him I was worried about making the right decision.  He said whatever I decided would be the right decision.  Something about the way he said it, with so much confidence, not just in me, but in all the people like me, made me feel really proud to be going in.

When you go in for Jury Duty, you're a citizen.  You are representing your country, just like a soldier, or an elected official.  You are responsible for the fair application of our country's laws, in a country that really does respect the ability of the individual to do that.  When they put you in charge of the verdict, the American Justice System is showing you respect, putting you ahead of the judge, the lawyers, everybody, and trusting you to be fair.  That's pretty heady stuff.  Why would you want to duck out of that?

I met a kid riding the bus today.  A nice kid. An articulate kid. A kid about the same age as my kid. 
I asked him if he was registered to vote.  He seemed surprised.  I mentioned that the election could decide if he and his peers were sent off to Iran.  He said he could probably run off to Canada.  I mentioned that it is probably easier to vote than to run to Canada. 
I know he was surprised by my question, from his double take, but I was surprised by his reaction.  I wonder who his parents are.  Do they vote? 
We've been taking Ben with us to the polls since he was wee.  He even got to go to a little junior voting event in kindergarten where he got to color in his ballot.  He forgot who he was going to vote for, so he asked the "poll" worker "Which one is the friend of the trees?" (Al Gore).  Last election he would get into spirited political conversations at his lunch table at school, which he'd repeat when he got home.  I donated for him (in my name, he was under 18 obviously) so I could get him an Obama tee shirt.  This year we've had plenty of conversations, not just about the candidates, but about the ballot amendments, and how important his vote is. 
He's a full fledged citizen this year, with the right to vote.  Its like getting the keys to the country.  He has a voice, he has political franchise, and whether you think one vote matters or not, we think it does, and we've taught him it does. 
But there must be parents who don't.  Parents who are disenfranchised, who aren't excited, who aren't sure their vote means much, who don't have a habit of educating themselves about their choices, let alone their kids. 
What do we do for the kids who are politically underprivileged?  Who never saw a grownup read a newspaper, or even a news website?  Who've never participated in a political discussion, or heard one, outside of the bloviations of talk radio?  This is their country, as much as any other kid's.  We would hesitate to turn the keys of a car over to kids who can't drive, but this isn't a car, this is a country, and ready or not, the keys are theirs.  More and more as time goes on we are going to have to rely on them to drive it. 

Bright kids, articulate kids, kids with great ideas might never think to participate if we don't start thinking about ways to get them as eager about their first vote as they are about their first car.