Vegetable red curry

A slightly more in depth recipe this week, and I can make no great claim for authenticity, but this is a delicious, simple, tasty curry.  You could add chicken or seafood to the curry sauce for a meaty alternative and obviously any seasonal veg can be used.

Ingredients (to serve 4)

2” piece of fresh ginger

5 garlic cloves

1 medium onion

3 red chilis (dried or fresh)

1 heaped teaspoon of paprika

1 tsp ground cumin

1 tsp ground coriander

½ tsp shrimp paste (or use anchovies and extra fish sauce)

1 tblsp vegetable oil.

1 tblsp Thai fish sauce

1 tblsp brown sugar

1 lime

1 can of coconut milk

300 ml veg stock

1 squash or small pumpkin

5 carrots

1 Cauliflower

Directions

1 Take all of the ingredients down to the shrimp paste, add to a food processer and blitz to form a fine paste, adding a little water if necessary.

2) Heat the vegetable oil to smoking point in a wok and then stir fry the paste until starts to release a wonderful aroma (2-3 minutes) do not allow it to burn.

3) Add the coconut milk and stock to the wok and stir to combine, bring back to the boil.

4) Deseed the squash and add in chunks, along with the peeled, chunked carrots.  Allow to cook for around 10 minutes before dividing the cauliflower into florets and adding to pan.

5) Cook until the vegetables are as you like them, add the lime juice, sugar and fish sauce and taste for seasoning.  The curry should be sweet, sour, hot and salty, add more lime / sugar / fish sauce to taste.

Serve this curry with rice, if you have kaffir lime leaves and lemongrass they’re a great addition to the sauce and paste.  Galangal is great in place of the ginger but I often have difficulty finding this, and the substitutes listed give a good store cupboard alternative.