I felt like making Thai curry since I haven't had Thai food for a while a couple nights ago, so I went ahead and made myself some green vegetarian curry. As luck would have it, just after Monday Thai food night, I was invited to have Thai for dinner on Tuesday (yay! more Thai food...) JP came back for her monthly visit this week, so the two of us and a couple other friends went to Erawan in Chinatown (official website, yelp review).
Enough about my restaurant adventure (that's another show)! Drum rolls please for my green Thai curry...
I adjusted the color of the photo slightly because my kitchen has very yellow lighting. "Edible" ingredients were bell peppers, straw mushrooms, baby corns, eggplants, and mock duck. Yes, I said mock duck-- this is vegetarian remember? I like a stronger curry taste so I ended up adding about 40% less coconut milk than recommended on the package. It turned out really spicy. JP had beef green curry too at Erawan, and she couldn't finish hers because it was too sweet. I tried the curry as well and I noticed the intense sweetness-- it's definitely unnatural for a curry to be this sweet! I stepped in, took that curry home, and blended it with my green curry. The result was a less spicy green curry. This double batch curry would last me through the week.
It isn't Thai food night without some Tom Yum Goong soup (wiki here). For the record, the supermarkets do sell Tom Yum soup base, but I used Thai chili paste and crab paste instead for my Tom Yum soup-- this is as close to scratch as I possibly can get in the US. Since this is Tom Yum Goong (and not Tom Yum Gai), I made it with shrimps (Goong means shrimp in Thai), I got some shrimp heads that I didn't want to waste. First thing is the soup base, which is made with shrimp heads, lemon grass, galangal, and onion. I'm pretty sure the Thais have their "holy trinity" (or "mirepoix" or "sofrito"), It probably isn't those 3 vegetation though (NY Times think it's cliantro, green onions, and culantro in the north, a guy on Tumblr thinks it's cilantro, garlic, and bird's eye chili). Good enough for now I guess...
Again, I adjusted the photo colors. After filtering out all the unwanted heads and such, I mixed the stock up with more lemon grass, bird's eye chili, Thai chili paste (Nam Prig Pow), crab paste, de-shelled, de-veined and decapitated shrimps, cleaned squids, baby corns, Enoki mushrooms, and a handful of green and red bell peppers. Why no straw mushrooms? Because yours truly was too retarded and added all the straw mushrooms to the green curry... As for the bell peppers, that's more for bulking up the soup. The soup is seasoned with fish sauce and lime juice to taste (no kaffir lime and its leaves here, so lime juice would have to do). Here's a shot of the finished product:
On most US restaurant's Tom Yum Goong, I have three pet peeves, not in any particular offending order: 1. there're tomatoes inside the soup, and 2. they are usually super light and taste like nothing, and 3. they are neither sour or spicy. The red color from the broth is NOT from tomatoes-- it's from the Thai red chili paste (or if you're lucky, the shrimp/crab broths that the chef used to make the soup)! Stop using tomatoes to fool those poor gringos! My homemade version was rich with shrimpy, crabby (in a good way), and chili paste goodness-- may be a hair too rich for Thai taste, but I like bold punches on a cold night.
A side note: when I go out for Thai food, I usually take a test drive on their Tom Yum soup, curry, and maybe a saute noodle dish. If either the soup or curry fails, I probably won't go back to the place again unless they make me a killer saute noodle dish that make me chase the wok hei dragon all night (hey! Check out my previous entry on wok hei here if you haven't already!). When a Thai place fails at making curry and Tom Yum soup, it is like an Italian restaurant fails at making pasta with marinara sauce and minestrone soup (and you know the "Italian" restaurant here would get a visit from Chef Ramsay... The Thai restaurant, likely not).
Anyways, bon appetit! If you would like me to feature any of these in GastroLab with Love or Mad Scientists at Work, drop me a line in the comments!
Enough about my restaurant adventure (that's another show)! Drum rolls please for my green Thai curry...
I adjusted the color of the photo slightly because my kitchen has very yellow lighting. "Edible" ingredients were bell peppers, straw mushrooms, baby corns, eggplants, and mock duck. Yes, I said mock duck-- this is vegetarian remember? I like a stronger curry taste so I ended up adding about 40% less coconut milk than recommended on the package. It turned out really spicy. JP had beef green curry too at Erawan, and she couldn't finish hers because it was too sweet. I tried the curry as well and I noticed the intense sweetness-- it's definitely unnatural for a curry to be this sweet! I stepped in, took that curry home, and blended it with my green curry. The result was a less spicy green curry. This double batch curry would last me through the week.
It isn't Thai food night without some Tom Yum Goong soup (wiki here). For the record, the supermarkets do sell Tom Yum soup base, but I used Thai chili paste and crab paste instead for my Tom Yum soup-- this is as close to scratch as I possibly can get in the US. Since this is Tom Yum Goong (and not Tom Yum Gai), I made it with shrimps (Goong means shrimp in Thai), I got some shrimp heads that I didn't want to waste. First thing is the soup base, which is made with shrimp heads, lemon grass, galangal, and onion. I'm pretty sure the Thais have their "holy trinity" (or "mirepoix" or "sofrito"), It probably isn't those 3 vegetation though (NY Times think it's cliantro, green onions, and culantro in the north, a guy on Tumblr thinks it's cilantro, garlic, and bird's eye chili). Good enough for now I guess...
Again, I adjusted the photo colors. After filtering out all the unwanted heads and such, I mixed the stock up with more lemon grass, bird's eye chili, Thai chili paste (Nam Prig Pow), crab paste, de-shelled, de-veined and decapitated shrimps, cleaned squids, baby corns, Enoki mushrooms, and a handful of green and red bell peppers. Why no straw mushrooms? Because yours truly was too retarded and added all the straw mushrooms to the green curry... As for the bell peppers, that's more for bulking up the soup. The soup is seasoned with fish sauce and lime juice to taste (no kaffir lime and its leaves here, so lime juice would have to do). Here's a shot of the finished product:
A side note: when I go out for Thai food, I usually take a test drive on their Tom Yum soup, curry, and maybe a saute noodle dish. If either the soup or curry fails, I probably won't go back to the place again unless they make me a killer saute noodle dish that make me chase the wok hei dragon all night (hey! Check out my previous entry on wok hei here if you haven't already!). When a Thai place fails at making curry and Tom Yum soup, it is like an Italian restaurant fails at making pasta with marinara sauce and minestrone soup (and you know the "Italian" restaurant here would get a visit from Chef Ramsay... The Thai restaurant, likely not).
Anyways, bon appetit! If you would like me to feature any of these in GastroLab with Love or Mad Scientists at Work, drop me a line in the comments!
You can judge a Thai restaurant based on the way they make their Tom Yum soup. I actually really like cherry tomatoes in the soup because they get a nice texture after they soak up the delicious broth. I think kaffir lime leaves are essential for the taste. Lime somehow does not substitute in the same way. It comes out more bitter than it should. The issue is it's always damn near impossible to find the leaves, unless you have a thai supermarket around. Galangal is hard enough too. Do you add coconut milk to the soup? I always end up putting too much, so it comes out kind of watery. Also, I realized I had no idea what I was doing when it comes to using lemon grass. There was a fantastic guide here: http://thaifood.about.com/od/thairecipesstepbystep/ss/lemongrasshowto.htm
ReplyDeleteThe mock duck in curry is actually really good. I love meat but, it's really a fantastic substitute especially for curry.
I'm glad we see eye to eye on Tom Yum soup as one of the members of the Thai food cannon. When I was young, I never had tomatoes in Tom Yum soup as one of the fixings, so I find it kind of weird that they do in the US Thai restaurants. One of the things I'm against is using tomatoes as a way to get the soup red. The color should come from the chili paste (or the stock itself if you're lucky).
DeleteI used lime juice to adjust the sourness. I added the lime juice at the end so there shouldn't be any bitterness due to heating up the lime. You're correct that kaffir lime leaves are so hard to find and that lime isn't really a good substitute-- in fact, I contemplated on buying a kaffir lime plants so that I get its leaves year round. Galangal is a little bit easier if you can find an Asian supermarket. By the way, great website on the lemon grass. I usually bruise them or cut them in thin slices then filter them out. They're pretty fibrous...
I don't use coconut milk for Tom Yum because it shouldn't come with coconut milk (that's Tom Kha soup from my limited Thai experience). If I were to ever tackle the Tom Kha soup, I probably would make a more concentrated stock and dilute it with coconut milk. Maybe that would help with the watery situation.
Ditto on the mock duck... I sometimes make saute dishes out of them, but I think curry is where it should be at.
Thanks for the comment! Keep them coming!
I don't think I've ever had a good Tom Yum soup. I cringe just thinking about how awful the last one I had was...
ReplyDeleteLooks delicious as always!
I don't think I have either... it's time to take back the Tom Yum soup! We must take matters into our own hands to start a homemade Tom Yum revolution!
DeleteActually Pinto around NYU does a decent job on their Tom Yum soup (and I think a partially decent lunch special to boot!). Eduardo should know what place I'm talking about...
Christin make me a Tom Yum soup! I've never had one.
ReplyDeleteBut you're veganing!
Delete