Thai Chicken Curry Recipe - First Shot

Got an itching to make Thai curry from scratch and I decided it made since with the cold weather. Thai food is one of my favorite cuisines as I love the complex salty, spicy, sour, sweet balance thing going on. I really had no recipe to go off of, but this came from a combination of stuff I probably saw on TV and taste memory. Three things I learned from this experiment is you can always use more Thai chilis for your paste, short grain rice is terrible for curries since it gets mushy, and never use frozen asian veggies - they become mushy and generally suck pretty bad. Even with all these lessons learned, I was pretty happy with the dish.

Ingredients
5 thai chilis - red or green (jalapenos can be substituted, but thai chilis have a great citrus background and are more spicy)
2 tbsp shrimp paste
5 gloves garlic
1 small shallot rough chopped
2 stalks lemon grass
1 lime (kaffir lime leaf would be preferable, but I couldn't find any)
2 cans coconut milk
1 tbsp fish sauce
2 tsp sugar
1 bag frozen asian veggies (again these suck, but that's what I used - you could use real snowpeas, bean sprouts, carrots, straw mushrooms, water chestnuts)
1/2 red onion rough chopped
1 pound jidori chicken leg, cut into thing slices
1 bag cooked white rice (preferably a long grain like basmati)
Cilantro leaves for garnish

1) With a pestal and mortar, smash the chilis, shrimp paste, garlic, shallots, tender parts of the lemon grass into a paste. Make sure to bash this into a fine paste. You can also use a food processor as well. I tried tasting this and it was insanely salty and spicy...but the coconut milk mellows the whole thing out and actually could use more chilis imho. 4 chilis is like medium low heat. 5-6 would be medium heat I think. Anything above, it'll be hella hot.
2) Bring the coconut milk to a boil in a wok or large pot. Add the zest of one lime, sugar, and the non tender parts of the lemon grass...not the woody exterior though.
3) Once the coconut milk starts boiling, cut to a simmer. Simmer for 5 minutes. Remove the lemon grass and zest. If you have the lime leaves, leave them in.
4) Add the chili paste and simmer for 10 minutes. Add 1/2 the lime juice, fish sauce, and taste. If you like it sweeter, add more sugar. Spicier, mash up some more chili's and dump em in. More sour, add more lime juice.
5) Add the chicken and let it simmer for 15 minutes. It could go even longer, since it's dark meat.
6) Set a stainless steel saute pan over high heat - like hades hot. Add the veggies and onion in. Don't touch or move. After 3-5 minutes stir around, you should get some color on the veg - it should still be crispy though. Add to the curry.
7) Simmer for another 3 minutes. Add rest of the lime juice and more fish sauce. Taste and adjust seasonings if necessary. Serve immediately over the basmati rice and garnish with the cilantro.