Oh, the luscious decadence of preparing my own meals…hot diggity. This was simple and cost-effective, and it’s great to eat a meal at home. It’s funny how it switches like that: you’ll be so tired of cooking or doing whatever menial chore gets your particular goat, and then you travel and hosts of excellent restaurants present themselves, and all you want to do is just slice some onions in your own kitchen. Well, I do anyway.

You’ll need:

Splash canola oil
1 shallot, half of it in fine dice, the other half left peeled and whole
2 cloves garlic, one finely sliced, the other one left peeled and whole
A thumb-knuckle sized chunk of ginger, peeled and whole
1 stalk celery, julienned on an angle
Half a red bell pepper, thinly sliced
1 package extra-firm tofu, cut into cubes
1 bunch cilantro with the bottom ends of the stems cut off
Couple of sprigs of Thai basil [Italian basil will work in a pinch]
3 tsp green curry paste [I found a rad one in the local grocery today: it says J-Lek with some unintelligible Thai characters afterwards. Good luck and Godspeed.]
1 can coconut milk
1 package frozen peas [ideally organic]
OPTIONAL: pea shoots, chopped in inch-long pieces
Splash rice vinegar

TO GARNISH: Chopped unsalted peanuts and lime wedges

[I recommend that you cook some whole grain of some sort to go along with this; we had brown rice. Some rice noodles would be awesome.]

Cut off the cilantro stems. Put them in the blender with the coconut milk, 2 tsp of green curry paste, basil, whole shallot, whole garlic, whole ginger, and about half a cup of water. Blend thoroughly, and sit tight.

In a heavy-bottomed pot, heat the canola oil on medium-high heat. Add one tsp of green curry paste and stir. Add tofu, veggies, shallot and garlic. Stir to heat and saute, stirring well, for just a couple of minutes. Add peas, stir, and heat thoroughly [another couple of minutes], then cover with the blended sauce. Heat and simmer for about 5 minutes. Add pea shoots if using, and rice vinegar to taste. Depending on your curry paste you may wish to salt a little more at this point; the paste I got was wicked salty, so I got off the hook in that respect. I also threw in some chopped cilantro at this point because I’m a cilantro junkie who can never be satiated. Simmer for another 5 or 10 minutes and then let rest off of the heat.

Ladle curry over grains or noodles and garnish with some sliced fresh basil, chopped cilantro leaves, a wedge of lime, and some chopped peanuts.

All the best nerdy shows like House MD and Heroes are on on Monday so it’s good to have a steaming hot bowl of awesome to sit down with.

1 Comment »

February 25th, 2009 Leanne Says:

Too funny- I made a red Thai curry tonight. Our minds be sitting on a beach in Koh Samui together…..

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