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!
