Thai Curry in Coconut Sauce

We had our friends over on Saturday evening and I decided to cook Thai food for them. For long I have wanted to try the Traditional Thai Vegetable curry from scratch instead of using the paste.. and I felt "what better time than now". So, off I went searching for a reliable source and succeeded in finding one.. sorry two. Now, that was the confusion. I simply could not decide on one since both seemed very delicious in their own way. Well.. then it was endowed upon me to incorporate the two and come up with one very satisfying yellow curry. The first website explained a curry that basically didn't use any paste.. it just relied on the natural taste of the ingredients used

1. http://www.importfood.com/recipes/tvegiincoconutsauce.html

The second one was a recipe for the paste used in the curry.

2. http://www.templeofthai.com/recipes/yellow_curry_paste.php

I took both and did some slight modifications to come up with my version.

Ingredients:

For the curry

Coconut milk - 14 fl. oz
Carrots diced into big rounds - 1/2 cup
Water chestnuts - 4 oz
Bamboo shoots - 4 oz
Edhamame/ soy beans - 1/2 cup
Peas - 1/2 cup
Onion - Sliced 1/2 cup
Red bell pepper Sliced - 1/2 cup
Oil for stir frying the veggies.

For the paste

I ommitted the shallots since I didn't have any and the shrimp paste since we are vegetarians. I also used a little more of ginger since the grocers didn't carry galangal called for in the original paste recipe (A type of sweet ginger)

Dried Red chilles - 2
Garlic Cloves - 10 nos. broiled
Ginger - 1/2 inch piece - broiled
Lemon grass - 2 (Skin removed and cut into long pieces)
1 tbsp roasted coriander seeds
1 tsp roasted cumin seeds
1 cube of the Golden King Thai yellow curry masala (subs. with any Thai curry paste)
Turmeric powder - 1 tsp

Method:

• Broil the ginger and garlic in oven over high for a couple of minutes. Take care not to burn.
• Grind together roughly all the ingredients for the curry paste.
• Heat oil in a sauce pan. Add the onions. Fry till they are transparent. Add the rest of the veggies and stir fry for a couple of minutes.
• Add the paste and fry it along with the veggies for a couple of minutes.
• Now add the coconut milk and salt. Bring to boil.
• Simmer over low heat for about 5 minutes. The veggies are supposed to be still crunchy while serving. Take care not to over cook them as it might spoil the taste.
• Serve hot with Jasmine rice.
  

Simple Puffs

I had some subji leftover from afternoon. It was kind of in a weird quantity, not too much to be used again for a meal and not too little to discard. So I thought of just making them into puffs for a nice evening snack when hubby comes back home. Since that is too spicy for my 18 month old, I also baked a batch of the same puffs using just cheddar cheese, basil and pepper for her. Needless to say, in the end there were two very happy people.

Ingredients:

Cabbage Poriyal - 1 cup
Puff Pastry sheets - 4
Grated Cheddar Cheese (or any variety) - 1 cup
Ground Pepper - 1 tsp
Dried Basil - 1/2 tsp
Butter (to apply on sheets if necessary)

Method:

• Mix the cheese, pepper and basil and set aside.
• Spread out a pastry sheet. Coat it with a little melted butter if directions call for it.
• Spread half of the cabbage poriyal on top of it almost evenly.
• Place one more pastry sheet on top. Spread the other half of the poriyal.
• Hold both the sheets together and roll them.
• Cut into 2 inch wide discs.
• Preheat oven and bake thoroughly as indicated in the puff pastry package.
• Repeat the same process by substituting the cheese mixture.
• Serve with hot sauce / mint chutney.