Thursday, August 21, 2008

Food Interlude VI: Thai Curry

A few simple rules govern the RB kitchen:

1) Meals must be reasonably healthful (some exceptions allowed)
2) Meals must be delicious (no exceptions!)
3) Preparation and clean up should be as easy as possible; anything elaborate better be damn good!
4) There should be leftovers

These rules are pretty universal, I concede, but I would add that they are especially salient for those of us who cook for and clean up after one, especially one who is single. I need to eat well because I cannot afford to become a big fat slug again, at least not until I ensnare my future future ex; the food must be tasty because I must keep my spirits up during this period of unbidden solitude; prep and clean up must be easy because I have to do it all, at least until the aforementioned future future ex materializes; and there must be leftovers because God created a meal called lunch, and a person who cooks for one cannot be preparing several meals a day from scratch. As an added bonus, if I eat lunch at 2 o'clock, I can have dinner reruns while watching a rerun of the previous night's Daily Show. That's a bit of cosmic synchronicity, and I dig it.

Few foods fit my four rules as neatly as does a Thai curry. Thai curries are simple to make, they're reasonably good for you (do you see many fat Thais? Neither do I), they are awesomely delicious, and, as with all stews, you can make as much as you like, meaning you'll have all the leftovers you can handle.

I am partial to yellow and masaman curries, which are both sweet and hot and pair well with chicken or shrimp. Purists make their curry pastes from scratch, and while I have no doubt that homemade curry pastes are infinitely better than store-bought curries, I confess that I find Maesri brand curry pastes quite fine, fine enough that I use them without the slightest remorse. They are also very inexpensive.

Like all stews, Thai curries can be--are meant to be--made with whatever you have sitting around the kitchen. You don't need a hard-and-fast recipe, just a few basic cooking techniques (sauté, stew) and some ingredients. My curries often include some of the following: potato, sweet potato, carrots, frozen peas, frozen corn, frozen green beans, fresh green beans, mushrooms, spinach, and some sort of flesh. Here's the one I made tonight:

Ingredients
1 lb. shrimp
1 onion, halved and cut into thin half-moons
1 large russet potato, cut in 3/4" dice
1 green bell pepper, sliced lengthwise to 3/4" width, then halved
1 Serrano pepper, halved and seeded
some tomatoes, diced
cilantro
1 can light coconut milk
1 tbsp. fish sauce
1 tbsp. peanut oil
salt to taste

I started by sautéing the onion in the peanut oil until the onion was cooked through and limp. While the onion was cooking I cut up the potato and bell pepper.

When the onion was cooked, I added the potato and cooked for a few minutes, stirring occasionally, just long enough to brown the potato a bit. Then I added the coconut milk and fish sauce. I brought the liquid to a boil, then added the green pepper and the Serrano pepper. I stirred in a generous tablespoon of yellow curry paste, reduced the heat to a simmer, and covered and cooked for 10 to 15 minutes, until the potato was cooked through.

When the potato was done, I added the shrimps, brought the liquid back up to a steady simmer, and cooked for a few minutes, until the shrimps were cooked through. At that point I turned off the heat, added the tomatoes and cilantro, hit it with a pinch of salt, and gave the dish a quick stir. It was now ready to serve, so serve I did.

After I was done, I realized that the dish was missing basil, a traditional ingredient in Thai curries. It was no worse for the basil's absence, truth be told. You can serve this dish over rice--jasmine rice is probably the best option for Thai food--but for me the potatoes make the rice unnecessary.

Best of all, this is a one-pot dish, making clean up a breeze.

So there you go.

4 comments:

memclean said...

Do you cut off the tails? I never know what to do about the tails! When eating a stew it's not so practical to use a knife to cut off the little flipper. Some just eat them I guess. Tails, I lose.

Anonymous said...

Appropos of nothing, I wish to report my first 5CB sighting (or, in this case, hearing) on XM radio this evening.

Reluctant Bachelor said...

Michael--

I buy them raw and shell them. The tail comes off in the process. You can reserve the shells to make shrimp stock, which is great for shrimp risotto, but that's another blog.

anon--

Cool!

Anonymous said...

I love Thai Curry. Really really love it. I'll get Andrew to make this for me. Sounds wonderful.