Spicy Thai Yellow Curry

After two weeks of craving curry, we finally took a Sunday evening to make our own curry paste….why did we wait so long?

thai yellow curry

Love this stuff!!!!

Ingredients for Thai Yellow Curry Paste

Serves 3.

4-5 dried chilies (soaked in water for 10-15 minutes)
2-3 fresh Thai chilies
1 1/2 teaspoons galangal, peeled and minced
1 1/2 teaspoons of tumeric, minced
1/2 stalk of lemongrass, minced (or about 1 T.)
1 1/2 teaspoons of ginger, peeled and minced
3 garlic cloves, minced
1/3 teaspoon of ground cumin seeds
1/3 teaspoon of ground coriander seeds
1 1/2 teaspoons yellow curry powder

Ingredients for Thai Yellow Curry

1 large chicken breast, thinly sliced
1 13.5 oz. can of coconut milk
1- 1 1/2 cups of water
1/2 onion, chopped
2 cups, chopped sweet potato, pumpkin, or other potato
2-3 green onions, chopped
1- 1 1/2 Tablespoons fish sauce
1 1/2 teaspoons of sugar
cilantro or thai basil for garnish
fresh lime, sliced for garnish
salt to taste

Instructions

1. Put all of you curry paste ingredients in a mortar and pestle and pound them until they’re as smooth as possible…this will probably take longer than it will take to cook the curry, but atleast you’re getting a good arm workout.

2. In a medium pot combine the chicken, onion, yellow curry paste and half a can of coconut milk and bring to a low boil.

3. Once the chicken is almost done cooking (this will only be a couple of minutes) add in the sweet potatoes and a cup of water.

4. Reduce heat to a simmer and allow the curry to reduce a bit. The sweet potatoes will take about 12-15 minutes to cook. At this point you can add in the rest of your coconut milk, fish sauce, sugar, and salt. If you need to thin the sauce now is a good time to add the remaining water.

5. Serve with rice and garnish with green onion, cilantro (or thai basil) and fresh lime.

Enjoy!!!

 

Curried Pumpkin Soup

Yep, I’m still on a pumpkin/squash kick….and I’ve been pretty lazy about posting, so I’ll go ahead and start with our Thai inspired curried pumpkin soup. This recipe is so versatile and can be made vegan and gluten free. We made ours with chicken broth, half and half, and butter because we had a little bit of each that we wanted to use before it turned bad, but I actually think the vegan version might be better. Also, this soup was super easy to make…the hardest part was peeling the fresh pumpkin, but with a little patience our OXO Peelerdid the trick.

curried pumpkin soup

A little comfort food for a cool fall day.

Recipe

Serves 6 as entree.

1 smallish-medium pie pumpkin, peeled, seeded, and cubed
1 onion, chopped
1 tablespoon vegetable oil or butter
1 1/4 teaspoon curry powder (I think you could use a curry paste if you don’t have powder)
1 teaspoon chili pepper flakes
3 cloves garlic, minced
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
8 cups of vegetable or chicken broth
1/2 cup coconut milk or half and half
3 tablespoons peanut butter
1 1/2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce (optional, omit for vegan)
sour cream (optional)
cilantro, chopped, for garnish
salt and pepper, to taste

Instructions

1. In a large soup pot bring your chicken broth to a boil on medium-high heat and add your pumpkin. Depending on how big/small your pumpkin chunks are it could take 15-20 minutes.

2. While your pumpkin is cooking, in a saute pan combine butter or oil, onion, garlic, curry powder and chili pepper flakes over medium heat and cook until onion is tender and translucent, probably 5-7 minutes.

3. Once your pumpkin is tender go ahead and add the onion mixture, peanut butter, nutmeg and Worcestershire sauce and simmer for 15 minutes.

4. Remove from heat and slowly add coconut milk or half and half to the mixture. Blend until creamy using your hand blender.

5. Garnish with a dollop of sour cream and cilantro.

Note: Toasted peanuts or pumpkin seeds would also be a nice addition.

For other great pumpkin and squash recipes I really like this book.