Thai-style Curry

Thai curry is a dish I have not made in awhile but I was out shopping for ingredients to make Phở and I came up empty on a couple of items but was still in the mood for an Asian kick so I bought some stuff to make red curry.

There really isn't anything spectacular about this dish for its preparation other than a couple tricks but it does pack a wallop of flavours. Think heat, sweet, savoury, black licorice, citrus, ginger, and many other hints and flirtations of Asian flavours.

Jasmine rice is probably one of the easiest and quickest rices to make and before doing anything else some rice was put on the stove. After that, I got water boiling to cook a diced sweet potato. I think it is important to do this so that it is already cooked before going into the curry. If you cook the sweet potato right in the curry it'll release a lot of moisture and throw off the consistency of the dish.

I heated my wok up to a pretty decent medium high heat and added some vegetable oil and a small can of red curry paste. I stirred that into the oil and then added chicken. After the chicken was coated and partially cooked the onion and green pepper went into the wok. I kept that cooking while stirring constantly. I then added the coconut cream and finished off with some basil and green onion. The basil really showcases its anise-like flavours and aromas in this dish.

I prefer coconut cream over milk because it is thicker and richer. I often like to have coconut cream on hand that has been sitting in my pantry for a long time. When this happens the fat separates on top of the thinner liquid. I use some of that fat with the vegetable oil to get the dish started. When cooking this dish I picked up the coconut cream yesterday and the fat and water were mixed together, no big deal.

I had some Bird Label Riesling with this dish. There were some leftovers for today's lunch. This dish lends itself well for leftovers.

Pasta Night

Tonight I put together a quick pasta. I started off by sweating down one onion, adding some garlic, hot pepper flakes, and then a splash of dry vermouth. A few weeks ago I bought 10 lbs of local tomatoes for $10. I froze most of them whole and tonight I took a few out and dropped them in some boiling water to take off the skins. After that, I rough chopped the tomatoes and added them to the mix. After 10 or 15 minutes the sauce was ready. I mixed that with the pasta in a bowl, added toasted pine nuts, fresh basil, and topped with parm.

A tasty dinner from prep to clean in an hour

Stir fry in no time is pretty easy. For mine, I put some oil in a small sauce pan and let that infuse with garlic, ginger, star anise, and a hot pepper. While that was happening on low heat I started to cut up my veggies, pounded my meat flat with a tenderizer, mixed some corn starch with cold water, and then got out my sauces/flavourings. The items from left to right, front to back are: Si Racha hot sauce, soy sauce, rice wine vinegar, fish sauce, 5 spice, sesame oil, and hoisin sauce. Some plain sugar and corn starch/water are off to the right.

Here is the oil infusing :High heat. It's a stir FRY , not a stir steam. I hit the wok with the tenderized beef and veggies at the same time on high heat and stirred like crazy, only to stop for this picture.
I didn't add all of those things from the counter until the very end and then serve with rice or noodles. My dish had rice.