This is a delicious curry from Thailand, one that is quite hot, but has a sophisticated, sweet, sour, salty flavour, with bursts of fruitiness from the tomatoes. The cucumber relish is a must, as it adds a lovely sharp sweetness on the side of your plate. The relish also works in all sorts of other ways, like in the cheese sarnies Nik brings to work for his breakfast. With this recipe you could buy 2 x 400ml cans of full fat coconut milk and open them without shaking them, pour off the liquid part and use that for the coconut milk, and keep the denser part for the coconut cream. We've also found Maggi powdered coconut to be excellent for making the coconut milk part of this curry, though the packet instructions are a little heavy handed; we found 40g of powder to 400mls of water to be perfect.

400ml coconut cream (see above)

2 tsp shaved palm sugar (to taste)

2-3 dsp fish sauce (nam pla)

250ml Vegetable Nage or Stock

400ml light coconut milk (see above)

15 small ripe cherry tomatoes

½ small onion cut into thin rings

2 large potatoes cut into 2cm dice or 400g whole baby new potatoes

12 large raw prawns, shelled, cleaned and deveined

1 dsp coriander powder

2 tsp cumin powder

1 tsp fennel seeds

1 dsp white peppercorns

pinch of mace

4 mild dried red chillies (the long ones) deseeded and soaked in water for 15 minutes and chopped roughly (adapt to taste, this makes quite a hot curry)

2 dsp chopped shallots

2 dsp chopped garlic (optional)

1 tbsp fresh galangal (use ginger if not available)

2 dsp chopped lemongrass stalks (use only the central parts)

2 dsp chopped coriander stalks

1 dsp powdered turmeric

Cucumber Relish to serve

The Geng Gari curry paste:-

• Put the peppercorns, shallots, garlic, galangal, lemongrass, coriander roots, and drained chillis into a blender with a small amount of water and blitz until it creates a very smooth paste. Add the dry spices (turmeric, coriander, cumin, fennel, mace) and blitz again. Add more water if needs be

The curry:-

• Bring the coconut cream to the boil and add the curry paste. Simmer for about 5 minutes, stirring frequently until it is fragrant and slightly oily. Season with palm sugar and fish sauce to taste, then add the coconut milk and Vegetable Nage and bring quickly back to the boil. Add the sliced onion and tomatoes, turn down the heat and simmer for 10 minutes. Add the potatoes and simmer till they're cooked. Add the prawns, and when they're only just cooked, bring the pan, and the accompaniments - the cucumber relish, steamed basmati rice and, if you fancy, some greens - to the table and serve