Wednesday Night Supper: Red Curry and Rice

Red and green curry pastes (and coconut milk) are your friends. It's amazing what deliciousness you can whip up when you have these key ingredients in the pantry.

I found the Thai Kitchen brand in my local Shaw's supermarket and the cans at my Asian market. The jars work fine, although they are rather hot hot hot (test your palate first - the heat gets hotter as the dish sits too).

Last night we had yu toy greens (sometimes called Chinese broccoli. Gai lan is also called Chinese broccoli), stirfried with garlic and chilies, and a red curry with tofu over jasmine rice.

Yu toy, like every other leafy green out there, really reduces down after you cook it. See before and after pics.

The curry is super easy to make if you have curry paste and coconut milk. I had limited proteins at my disposal, but I did have a half-pound block of firm tofu in the freezer. When you thaw frozen tofu it takes on a crumbly, scrambled eggy texture which is quite nice when crumbled into a curry sauce.

To make my curry, I sauteed some thin sliced onion and chopped carrots (just to give them a a head start on softening up). When they were a little soft, I added two teaspoons of red curry paste (Thai Kitchen brand). I stirred that around to "toast" the curry paste.

When the paste was fragrant, I added a can of coconut milk. I left it to simmer for a few minutes and added about a cup of chicken broth to loosen the sauce up (undiluted coconut milk is rich). I added in the tofu and let everything simmer gently while I waited for the greens and the rice to finish up. I tossed in a handful of cilantro and thai basil to finish. (Sorry, realized I have no picture of the finished dish.)

The whole process took about 20 minutes from start to finish, not counting waiting for the rice to finish cooking.

We finished with a salad of chunks of cantaloupe and cucumber tossed with mint, basil, chilies and lime.