Place 1/3 of the peeled and de-seeded papaya in your food processor together with all the other ingredients except the ‘rock’ palm sugar and water — those two are only added when you cook the sauce. The remaining 2/3 two-thirds of the papaya — the bite-size pieces — is also going to be added later when you cook the sauce.

Blitz the mix until you get a finely-textured paste. Good — sauce prep done.

Because the curry takes so little time to cook, I’d recommend making the rice first and then keeping it warm in a bowl ready for serving.

Cooking the rice is easy — simply follow the instructions on the pack. That usually means covering the rice in a pan with water and adding a level teaspoon of salt. I used a 7-inch saucepan, and added enough water to cover the rice by an inch.

Bring the pan to a boil, drop the heat to low, and cover the pan, so it slowly simmers for about 7 minutes. The rice will absorb all the water and be just al dente. Done. Turn the rice into a warmed serving dish, and scatter a few sprigs of decorative cilantro over the top.

You’ll need to use a saucepan that’s easily big enough to hold all the ingredients — the blitzed curry paste, 3 cups water, and the seafood.

Set the pan on a medium heat, and stir in the blitzed paste and the water. Let the pan just come to the boil, then turn the heat to low so that the sauce can just barely simmer for ten minutes on that low heat. Now gently stir in the bite-size chunks of payaya and turn off the heat.
**Pre-cooking the prawn tails**

For this, you’ll need a skillet that will hold all the tails in an even layer. Set the skillet on a high heat and add the coconut oil. You want the oil to be hot enough to give the tails a little color, and pull out the flavor from the shells. That means giving them some fast, searing heat for about 30 seconds on each side in the hot oil. Tip them quickly into the pan with the sauce — you’re now ready to finish cooking your Thai fish curry.

Place the saucepan with the sauce and prawn tails on a medium-high heat. Stir just enough so that the prawns get a coating of the sauce. The moment the sauce starts to bubble, drop the heat to low and carefully add the pieces of fish in a single layer on top of the sauce. Don’t push the pieces into the sauce, just let them sit on top of it.

Cover the pan and let it gently simmer — and I mean gently — for five minutes. Done. It’s ready for serving in a good size, shallow, warmed dish. I used a 14-inch, cast iron gratin dish, with the rice served alongside, so people can eagerly help themselves.