When you crave a curry, nothing else will do. But, you know. Making a ‘proper’ curry, whether Indian or South East Asian, involves loads of ingredients and making a paste from scratch. (Except a Japanese curry, where you just throw a few of those curry roux thingos at your dish, then watch them melt and release palm oil, flour, sugar, salt, cornstarch, caramel, colour, monosodium glutamate, defatted soybean, cheese seasoning, autolyzed yeast extract, roasted onion powder, honey, soy lecithin, sesame paste, brown roux AND OTHER ASSORTED SHIT, thickening to a viscous glistening gloop in the process. As you can probably tell, this is not our Spirit Animal).

We‘re not averse to using purchased pastes and powders, but spices and aromatics get their punchy flavours from volatile compounds that lose pungency over time, so a paste or powder in a jar will never deliver the same wallop as the fresh equivalent. There’s just something about freshly roasted and ground spices for Indian-style curries, or a fragrant home-made paste for a Thai or Malay one, that truly gets our juices flowing. While purists insist you should smoosh wet pastes using a mortar and pestle for the proper texture and flavour, we use a processor to smash our way through the job. And for dry spice mixtures, an electric spice grinder (we have a coffee grinder for this exclusive purpose) makes short work. But sometimes, even this is effort. The hauling of a machine to the bench. The rummaging and muttering while trying to locate the correct blade and the lid. The washing up afterwards. The turmeric stains. First world issues. Sometimes we just can’t.

When we want it all – the zingy taste of a fresh paste without leaving the couch for too long – we compromise. We make this. Yes, there are a number of components but if you want those super-fresh sweet-sour-salty-spicy-herbal flavours, them’s the breaks. In spite of the long-ish ingredient list, this is relatively fast to pull together; using a microplane to finely grate the ginger, turmeric (we don’t bother to peel) and garlic instead of a knife is pretty fast. (Unhappily this doesn’t work for the lemongrass; we’ve tried. But instead of chopping it you could split it down the middle, bash it around, then tie the pieces in knots and hurl them into your simmering curry. Job done). Customise by adding as much sugar, fish sauce and aromatics to taste… if you don’t have, or don’t like, something, just leave it out. No biggie. 

SERVES 4

600-700g skinless meaty white fish fillets (we used ling)

1½ tbsp vegetable oil

600g-700g cherry tomatoes

2½ tbsp finely grated ginger

1½ tbsp freshly grated turmeric, or 1½ tsp ground turmeric (more about turmeric here)

4 garlic cloves, finely grated

1 lemongrass stalk, trimmed and very finely sliced

5 makrut lime leaves, bruised

2-3 medium red chillies, halved lengthways

250ml (1 cup) chicken stock

2 tbsp chopped palm sugar, or to taste

2½ tbsp fish sauce, or to taste

1 tsp ground white pepper, or to taste

180ml (¾ cup) coconut milk

2 red chillies, finely chopped

steamed rice, shredded makrut lime leaves and lime halves, to serve

Cut the fish widthwise into 1cm thick slices, then set aside.

Heat the oil in a wok over medium-high, add the tomatoes, then cook, stirring occasionally, for about 2 minutes or until starting to lightly scorch. Add the ginger, turmeric, garlic, lemongrass, lime leaves and chilli, then cook, stirring, for another 2-3 minutes or until fragrant and the tomatoes are starting to soften. Add the stock, palm sugar, fish sauce and white pepper and bring to the boil. Add the fish, pushing it into the liquid as much as you can, cover the pan, then reduce the heat to medium-low. Cook for 2 minutes, turn the fish over, then drizzle in the coconut milk and bring back to a simmer. Cook, covered, for 3 minutes or until the fish is just cooked through. Taste, then add more fish sauce and pepper if needed. Divide among plates, scatter with shredded lime leaves, then serve with steamed rice and lime for squeezing over.