Homemade Thai Tofu curry

I was forwarded this interesting article by my BIL and found it very interesting. It is about how to give your kitchen a fresh start this new year, as the author says. And I feel there are quite many good tips which I have always followed, but some which I feel I need to do. There are some things which are easy if you make it a habit, which is initially difficult, but once you are into it and you don't need to give it a thought, it just happens on its own. Things which may appear too long and cumbersome, but aren't really so. I always believe, that it is all in our minds, this cumbersomeness. I remember during my times at the Botanical Institute where I worked and sometimes heard students say the same about all the experiments which had to be done and this was always my answer, it is all in your mind. You just need to get the feel of it and get used to it. Don't you think so too?
Things like preparing the vegetable broth at home by just cooking up some carrots and celery on the side isn't so time consuming or cumbersome if we just plan it ahead. Once we get used to it, we wouldn't find it impossible. I can so easily prepare a day before and use it the next day, for example. And this is one thing I want to start this year, making my own vegetable broth.

Now coming to the recipe, I was inspiered by the Thai curries made by Bee and Jai at Jugalbandi to finally make my own as well and not just keep "thinking" about it. So, this is a rough estimate of how I made it. I just used the amounts I felt appropriate at that moment. And my curry is my own modified version from different recipes to suit our family taste :

Tofu in Thai curry

Recipe by PG of My Kitchen Stories

Ingredients:

300 g firm Tofu (I used organic tofu from my local store), cubed
2 small carrots, peeled and cut into thin slices
1/2 large red bell peppers, cut into bite sized pieces
1/2 small Italian aubergine, cut into small pieces (optional)
1 zucchini, cut into thick slices
1 yellow onion, peeled and cut into pieces
1 large garlic clove, finely chopped or grated
1/2 inch piece of ginger, peeled and grated
1/2 tsp coriander seeds, ground
1/2 tsp turmeric powder
4-5 keffir lime leaves, slit on both sides of the midveins without breaking into smaller pieces
1 lemon grass, green cut intolarge pieces and the white part crushed
2/3 can coconut milk, shaken before opening
a few dashes fish sauce (optional)
salt to taste
oil for frying
3-4 tbsp Thai curry paste of choice (I used home made*)
1/2 a bunch of Thai basil, leaves only
a handful of corianer leaves (cilantro), chopped

Method:

• In a large sauté pan heat some oil and fry the tofu pieces turning carefully only once till golden in colour on both sides. take out and set side
  
• Clean the pan and in some oil fry the onion, garlic and ginger along with coriander- and turmeric powders
  
• Add the aubergine, fry for a few minutes on medium heat
  
• Then add carrots, fry for another few minutes and add bell pepper and fry further covered, add little salt. Once the aubergine is almost done, remove from pan and set aside
  
• Fry zucchini for short till it gets a golden brown surface (optional) or add it directly to the curry later
• Heat oil or coconut milk in the same pan or a small frypan and fry the curry paste on medium heat till it gets golden brown. Add some coconut milk in between so that it doesn't burn
  
• In the sauté pan put back all the vegetables and tofu and add salt, fish sauce and coconut milk along with the fried currry paste. Mix and cook on medium low -it should be bubbling slowly for about 10 minutes covered till the curry looks done.
  
• Add water, if required, in between
  
• Add the Thai basil leaves and cover lid again for a couple of minutes
• Before serving garnish with the cilantro leaves and serve along with steamed rice

* My recipe of Thai curry paste:

Ingredients:

Roast separately and grind together:
1 tbsp coriander seeds
1 tsp cumin seeds

1 lemon - organic or unsprayed, the zest and its juice
1" piece ginger, peeled and grated finely
1" piece galangal, peeled and grated finely
4 large garlic cloves, chopped finely or grated
2 small red onion or shallots, chopped - (I left it out)
4-6 keffir lime leaves, chopped
2 lemon grass, the white part only, chopped
a few dashes fish sauce (optional)
1/4 tsp turmric powder (or use fresh turmeric, peeled and grated)
1/4 tsp shrimp paste (optional)
1 green chilli, seeded and chopped -(increase quantity to taste)

Method:

• roast the dry spices and let cool down before grinding
• prepare the wet ingredients and mix with dry ground spices and grind everything to a paste
• use fresh or freeze in portions of 2-4 tbsp, as required
  

NOTE: the shrimp paste and fish sauce cn be left out or replaced with fermented bean pastes, if you prefer it that way or just leave it out.

I have been too lazy to make this again, but this was a wonderful thing to do as I could use as much of the paste as I wanted without worrying about its hotness, so sunny boy could eat it easily. I don't think I need to tell any of you who eat Thai food, how delicious such curries are and so was this one too. I loved the richness of flavours in Thai curries and even though I felt that it was somehow different from the packaged ones, I was happy with the results. I love Thai basil, it's aroma, and I even had coriander leaves which made the dish perfect for me.

I'm sending this recipe to DK's a very interesting event series AWED: the theme this time being Thailand at DK's Culinary Bazaar.


Other similar recipes from other bloggers:

Thai Yellow Curry with Seafood at Rasa Malasia
Thai Red Curry (Gaeng Daeng) at Jugalbandi

Thai green curry with lots of veggies and Kra Chai (wild ginger)

By mistake hubby brought me this strange looking herb from the Chinese grocery store which I had no clue to what it was. I was sure that it was not galangal, which I actually wanted. Initially I as quite skeptical and was wondering if it has gone bad or what, as the outer layers looked darker than the centre. But, once I used it I liked this earthy but still so aromatic fragrance of it. It smells distinctly different than galangal or ginger. Recently I went to the Asian grocery shop myself and bought it again and this time there was also a name on it, to my delight. It said "tumicuni". I showed hubby how galangal looks like which was also lying just next to it. So, after searching for "tumicuni" through Google, I found out what it was.
It seems to have many names in English and in different Asian countries and regions. Tumicuni (I think is from Indonesia) or 'Kra Chai'* (Thailand), 'chinese keys', 'wild ginger', 'finger root' or 'galingal' (not galangal). Its binomial Latin name is Boesenbergia pandurata. Here is a good informative page on finger root at Gernot Katzer's spice pages. Just like ginger, galangal or turmeric, it belongs to the ginger family (Zingiberacea) and the part used in cooking is a rhizome.
While searching for a recipe for Kra Chai I came across this recipe of wild ginger at ThaiFoodPlus.com. After seeing how it is really used, I was confident enough to try using it on my own and tried to make something using them with Oregon pink shrimps.

*A couple of days ago I had a Thai friend, also an ex-colleague, visiting me from Regensburg and she told me that the word Kra Chai is pronounced as Kra Shai - \ai\ as i in ice. Through her I also got to know that Kra Chai is a sparely used spice in the Thai kitchen and comes in use for only a few selected recipes.

Thai green curry with shrimps

Recipe by PG of My Kitchen Stories

Ingredients:
150-200 g cold water shrimps (I used MSC certified Oregon pink shrimps)
1 medium carrot, sliced or julliened
1 long stalk bamboo shoot (15-20 cm), cut into 1/2 cm rings or 5 -6 cm vertical slices
10 mushrooms, quartered or halved, depending on size
1/2 green bell peppers, chopped into mouth sized pieces
1/2 red bell peppers, chopped into mouth sized pieces
1 lemon grass, the green part kept as stalks and the white part crushed
a few lemon leaves, each leaf slit a number of times on both sides of the midrib
1 large red onion, chopped
1 large garlic, chopped finely
1 inch ginger, chopped or grated fine
1 small stalk of Tumicuni (Kra Chai or wild ginger), finely chopped
1 tsp Thai green curry paste** (I used Lobo)
2/3 can coconut milk, shaken before opening (we used up all of it , as it turned out to be too hot)
a few dashes fish sauce
salt to taste
1/2 packet Thai basil, the leaves - washed
a few tbsp coriander leaves (cilantro), washed , pat dried and chopped
1 tbsp oil for frying

** It is the hottest of all the Thai curries!! Very Very HOT!

Method:

• thaw the shrimps at room temperature (you can also add them directly from the freezer into the curry)
  
  
  
  
• wash, clean and chop vegetables and spices and set aside
• heat 1 tbsp oil ((or 2-3 tbsp coconut milk) in a sauté pan (or wok) and add onion, garlic, ginger, tumicuni and lemon grass and fry
  
• add the vegetables one by one, frying each for a minute before adding the next on medium heat
  
• if required add a few tbsp coconut milk in between
• add the green Thai curry paste and stir
• add coconut milk and cook for a while, stirring in between
  
• add the shrimps - depending on if they are thawed or not, add them either shortly before the curry is done or cook for longer till done
  
• add fish sauce and salt to taste and the basil leaves about 1 or 2 minutes before the curry is done
• serve warm, garnished with cilantro, to steamed rice

This was a rich and flavourful curry. Beautifully aromatic because of the Thai basil, coconut milk, cilantro (fresh coriander leaves) and, of course, all the spices like Kra chai, ginger, and the Thai spice curry paste. Needless to say, it was a wonderfully tasty curry. But, there was a one big problem. : it was HOT! Despite my having used just 1 teaspoon, it was horribly hot. I had to add lots of coconut milk to reduce the hotness, not only for sunny boy, but also for me and hubby.
And then when I told my Thai friend about the hotness, she told me it is the hottest of all the Thai curries. Well,.......now I know it for sure, never to forget it again! She suggested that I use the yellow curry paste as a mild alternative, which I will do next time. So, if you think fiery hot food is just the right thing for you, then go ahead and try this Thai green curry.
But, after adding more coconut milk from the can, the curry became mild enough for us, but not for sunny boy. For him I took out the vegetables and the shrimps and mixed with plain coconut milk which was alright for him then and he enjoyed eating it too.

Thai Chicken in Red curry

Both myself and Chonu, my hubby, we love Thai food. After having eaten a couple of times at some Restaurants I also started cooking these dishes myself at home. Earlier, when we did not have any restrictions on the hotness of the sauce, I used generous amounts of these packaged curry pastes. And we found them not bad at all. They do not contain any preservatives or colours or any flavour enhancers et cetera. And still, they give the food a very authetic Thai flavour. One does notice the difference in the freshness between a good Restaurant curry, I admit, but still not to such an extent. In fact, this Thai friend, living here in Germany, told me that she likes to use them too - although, I guess more out of need than choice.
I still use these curry pastes, to avoid making things too complicated, but despite that, I cannot use these pastes like before, as that makes the curry we make too hot for my son to be able to eat and enjoy them. Earlier I used half of the paste each time for both of us, now it is not more than a teaspoon of the total, which is almost 1/10th of the whole quantity. But, it still adds to the wonderful flavours of the curry. So, I usually keep at least one packet of these pastes in stock in my pantry. But, otherwise I try to use as many fresh ingredients for the curry as possible.

For last Friday we had already planned a few days before that we will be eating Thai style chicken. And the desire to make it became even stronger after I saw a post on My Cooking Hut, a food blog, yesterday with some beautiful pictures and delicious recipes from someone who is a Malaysian. Her post on a prawn curry was the inspiration for this recipe.
The chicken turned out so good. Sometimes I feel the clarity of thought and a relaxed mind at that moment is so important to get good results while cooking too. Rather than a hurriedly prepared meal. I personally get into trouble when I have to prepare something in a hurry and I loose this feeling which usually guides me while cooking. Then I prefer sticking to the food I grew up eating, which I could prepare with my (concious) brain shut off!
So, here it goes, a simple but very tasty recipe:

Ingredients:


3 filets Chicken, washed, pat dried and cut into thin stripes

Chicken Marinade:
fish sauce and
a pinch of ground curcuma
1/2 tbsp dried coriander powder (optional - I'm just so fanatic about it!)
1 tbsp lime/lemon juice (added later, had forgotten to add this!)

Onion paste:
1 onion, peeled and chopped
3 small garlic cloves, coarsely chopped
1 inch (about 3 cm) ginger, chopped coarsely
1 tsp lime juice

1 can of coconut mik, shaken before opening
2 cups green beans (French beans), chopped
1 cup carrots, chopped into thin slices
fish sauce, to taste

1 tsp Kaang Pa Country Style Red Curry Paste (Lobo)
1 lemon grass, cut into long pieces and the white part crushed
5-6 kaffir lime leaves, chopped or leaves slit on both sides of the mid-vain
1/2 lime (or lemon), the juice
1/2 tbsp dried coriander powder (optional)
1 cup cabbage, chopped

1 tomato, chopped
10 sprigs Thai basil leaves, washed and pat dried

2 tbsp coriander leves (cilantro), chopped, to garnish

Method.

• Marinate chicken : chicken pieces+ fish sauce+ turmeric+lime juice
• Make into a fine paste: onion, garlic and ginger with lime juice using an electric chopper/ food processor
• In a sauté pan or wok cook the beans and carrots in a few tbsps of coconut milk on medium heat till done, add a dash of fish sauce or to taste, if required add water, and set aside
  
• Again add a few tbsps of coconut milk in the pan and cook the chicken, stirring in between on medium heat till the chicken is done, adding more coconut milk, if required, and letting the coconut milk to dry up and turn golden brown. Take out and mix with the cooked vegetables
• Add some more coconut milk to the pan and fry the onion paste with the lemongrass, kaffir lime leaves, the red curry paste, first on high heat and then, when the paste starts to get a bit dry, on low heat for a further two minutes , stirring continuously
• Add the chopped cabbage and a little more coconut milk stirring further
  
• Add the chicken and vegetables backinto the pan, stir and add the remaining cocnut milk and all the other ingredients except for the Thai basil and cilantro garnish and simmer for further two mintes.
  
• Switch off heat and add Thai basil and leave covered for a minute, mix
• Serve garnished with cilantro

Now, my red curry does not as red, as I have taken very little of the paste and no red chillies for it, but it tasted so delicious! When it comes to Thai or any south Asian food, I'm all for it!