I don’t cook separately for kiddo so I scaled down the spice level for this recipe. (Poor kiddo had only tofu from the red curry). Coming back to the El-dorodo Restaurant, vaandu had his first tofu there and also he learnt how to use fork. I think he was around 30 months and we gave him the fried tofu and a plastic spoon. He spent entire 1 hr in breaking the tofu into pieces with his fork and but ate the pieces with his hands. Paneer and Tofu became his favorites from that day on. :-)
Like red curry, I referred the same two sites and the book. One was Eating Thai Food and this book – Thailand: The Beautiful Cookbook, and the last one from this site. I skipped soy sauce in all my curries but you can go for light soy sauce. Also for this curry I skipped tofu and went with green veggies like baby bok choy and broccoli. Baby Bok choy adds creaminess to the curry. Luckily found baby corn and used them as whole instead of chopping them. Also I didn’t use the thin coconut milk for boiling the veggies rather went with the green curry paste water. This is a light and refreshing Thai curry.
The major difference between red curry paste and the green curry paste here is the cilantro and the addition of green thai chillies instead of red one and also I included kaffir lime in the paste itself. Here is what I did, Ingredients: For Green Curry Paste:
Thai Green Chillies (deseeded) – 2 Peppercorns – ¼ tsp Cumin Seeds – ½ tsp Garlic Cloves – 2 Shallots – 2 Kaffir Lime Leaf – 1 Lemon Grass – ½ a stalk. I used the top tender portion. Coriander Seeds – 1 tsp Cilantro – ¼ cup Galangal – 1 inch piece
Other Ingredients:
Broccoli florets – 4 to 5 Baby Corn – 5 Carrot – 1 Baby Bok choy – 3 Eggplant – 2 Thai Basil – few leaves Oil – 1 tbsp Sugar – 1 tsp Thick coconut milk – 1 cup Salt – 1 tsp to 1.5 tsps. (Adjust according to your taste) Water – ¼ cup + 2 to 3 tbsps
Steps:
Chop the green chillies and remove the middle stem from the kaffir lime leaves. Grind everything given under green curry paste by adding 2 to 3 tbsps of water.
Use ¼ cup of water to rinse you mixie or blender in which you prepared the green curry paste and save the water. Now heat the kadai or pan and add oil. Once the oil is hot add the veggies and saute for a minute. Now add the saved water and add salt and sugar. Let it simmer till the veggies are tender.
Now add the green curry paste and let it simmer it the raw smell goes away. Now finally add the thick coconut milk and the chopped basil leaves and simmer for couple of minutes.
That’s it. Green curry is ready. Serve hot with rice.
Notes:
De-seeding green chillies is not required. But as the chillies I used was super hot, I removed the seeds. Also use any vegetables of your choice. If you are using capsicum use around ¼ cup. I used the top green portion of the lemon grass stalk for this. You can boil the veggies in thin coconut milk also. I just went with regular water.