Thai Red Curry with vegetables

I can’t exactly point to my first Thai curry experience. But the flavours, aromatics and slight sweetness and creaminess of coconut milk was everything I love. I do favour a green curry over a Thai red curry, and I order it in from Bercos as a meal for one quite often. Having stated my love for Thai curries, it is also true that I seldom cook them at home. And this was my first time of doing a Thai red curry from scratch. The challenging bit was the unavailability of ingredients – no shrimp paste or fish sauce. But the plus point is that an Indian pantry has plenty of substitutes. So, penning down this recipe with lots of options you can use instead of authentic Thai ones.

Check out my green curry and yellow curry soupy noodles. Also did a little experiment with yellow curry paste, porridge and pineapples, check it out here.

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Ingredients for Thai Red Curry – serves 4

For the Red curry paste

• Onion – 1 small
• Red bell pepper – 1 small
• Jalapeno/ capsicum – 1 small
• Garlic cloves, peeled – 8
• Thai basil leaves – 8 to 10 (If you don’t have Thai basil you can substitute it with Italian basil or even Tulsi, which is quite peppery and works well)
• Roasted Cumin Powder – 1/2 tsp
• Coriander Powder – 1/2 tsp
• Kaffir lime leaf – 1 OR Lemon zest – 1/2 tsp
• Galangal/ ginger minced – 2 tsp
• Lemon juice – of 1/2 a lemon
• Lemongrass sticks (soaked overnight in 200ml of water) – 8 approximately 4 to 5 inches in size
• Water from the soaked lemongrass – 1/4 cup (Reserve the rest for the curry)
• Dried Red chillies, deseeded – 3
• Degi Mirch powder – 1/2 tsp
• Brown sugar – 1 tsp

For the curry

• Mixed vegetables of your choice – 2 cups (I used zucchini, carrots and broccoli)
• Fresh coconut 1st milk – 3/4 cup
• Fresh coconut 2nd milk – 1-1/4 cups (Recipe here)
• Salt – to taste
• Sugar – 2 tsp
• Coconut oil – 2 tbsp

Method for Thai Red Curry

• To make the Thai curry paste, roughly chop the red and green bell pepper and onions.
• Add all the curry paste ingredients into the mixer jar. Add 1/4 cup of lemongrass water and blitz grind into a fine paste.

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• Heat oil in a pan, add the vegetables and cook for 5 minutes.
• Add the ground paste into the pan, add the lemongrass water and 2nd milk of coconut.
• Season with salt and sugar, mix and bring to a boil. Cover and cook on medium-low heat for 15 minutes.
• Turn the heat off and add the 1st milk of coconut and mix.
• Serve with jasmine or steamed rice.