Thai recipes please

[Montifer]

Planning to cook Thai food tomorrow evening and have no previous experience.

There will be 5 of us eating: 2 non meat eaters who do fish, 1 non fish eating meat eater and of the 2 who eat meat, fish and veg, 1 doesn't do 'hot' and 1 (me) likes it nose runningly, gum tingling hot.

Initial thoughts were a green chicken curry, red prawn curry / prawny Pad Thai and a beef salad served with jasmine or coconut rice. Not sure about other side dishes / veggies / condiments.

Have found Nigel Slater's green curry recipe which looks promising.

Am also wondering if it's worth doing the curry paste from scratch or could I get away with a 'quality' jar.

I'd really appreciate any recipes / menu planning suggestions from Thai food aficionados.

Evening.

To be honest, although it is really lovely to make everything from scratch, for your first venture good quality jar pastes will be easier.

Do you have a good shop that has all the Thai stuff near you?

thaitable.com has some lovely recipes. you could make the dishes milder then have an additional chilli sauce dip for those that want to spice their food up a bit.

My Thai SIL uses the sauce bases that come in packets rather than jars as apparantly they taste more authentic.

If you can get hold of Thai basil leaves and sprinkle these in the dishes at the end it gives them a real lift.

Evening.

That sounds sensible advice re jars, especially in view of the (rare) lie-in I am currently factoring into tomorrow's schedule

There is a great local shop which I think I can get paste from and also huge bunches of fresh herbs I might need, I'm presuming coriander.

I'm hoping the red and green curries will be pretty easy if I buy paste and add coconut milk and fresh herbs.

Any other recipe ideas / tips would be gratefully received.

Sorry, x posts there.

Thanks, that's really helpful, Thai table site looks great.