Thai Yellow Vegetable Curry

Give me a well-made Thai curry with hot steamed rice any day, and I will be a very happy person!

It is no secret that I adore the Thai cuisine. I love the way it combines so many flavours – hot and tangy and salty and sweet – in such simple ways. I also love the fact that most Thai food is so very easy to prepare at home. Substitutes for some typical Thai ingredients are easily available in India, and it is not tough to put together a delish Thai meal within a matter of minutes. Check out this Thai Yellow Vegetable Curry that I recently prepared!

The recipe for this Thai Yellow Vegetable Curry comes from Cooking From Heart, a food blog I absolutely love. Indian substitutes have been used here for some Thai ingredients, cause for purists to balk, but I must say this is one of the most delicious curries I have ever had. I have made a few changes of my own to the original recipe.

I served the Thai Yellow Vegetable Curry with rice that I steamed with a little lemongrass, and it was a huge hit at home! All of us loved the curry so much that it disappeared within minutes!

Why don’t you try it out too?

Here is how I made the Thai Yellow Vegetable Curry.

Ingredients (serves 4):

For the curry paste:

1. 7-8 shallots or small onions
2. 7-8 cloves of garlic
3. 1/2 teaspoon lemon zest
4. 2 lemongrass stalks
5. 1 teaspoon cumin seeds
6. 1 teaspoon coriander seeds
7. 2 green chillies
8. A 1-inch piece of ginger

Other ingredients:

1. 5-6 button mushrooms
2. Half of a medium-sized zucchini
3. 1 small carrot
4. 5 beans
5. Half of a medium-sized capsicum
6. 1/4 cup paneer
7. 2-3 medium-sized florets of broccoli
8. 4 pieces of babycorn
9. 1 teaspoon oil
10. 1 teaspoon soya sauce
11. Salt to taste
12. 1/2 teaspoon turmeric powder
13. 1/2 teaspoon curry powder (I used sambar powder instead)
14. 1 teaspoon sugar
15. 1 cup thick coconut milk
16. A few Thai basil leaves

Method:

1. We will first prepare the curry paste. Peel the ginger, garlic and shallots. Chop the green chillies, ginger and lemongrass stalks into small pieces. Take the chopped green chillies, ginger, garlic, shallots and lemongrass stalks, lemon zest, and the coriander and cumin seeds in a small mixer jar. Grind to a smooth paste, using very little water. Keep the paste aside.
2. Now, we will prep the veggies and paneer to make the curry. Cut the zucchini into cubes. Peel the carrot and cut into cubes. Chop the capsicum, button mushrooms, babycorn and broccoli into smaller pieces. Remove the strings from the beans and cut into 1/2-inch pieces. Cut the paneer into cubes. Keep aside.
3. Now, we will begin preparing the Thai Yellow Curry. Heat the oil in a heavy-bottomed pan. Add in the chopped veggies and saute on medium flame till they are cooked, but still retain a bit of a crunch. Add in salt to taste, the sugar, turmeric powder, the paneer cubes, soya sauce, the curry paste we prepared earlier and the curry powder. Saute for a minute, on medium flame.
4. Add the coconut milk. Mix well. Cook on medium flame till the curry begins to boil. Stir intermittently. Now, turn down the flame lower, and let the curry simmer for 2 minutes. Switch off gas.
5. Roughly tear the Thai basil leaves, and add them to the pan. Mix well.
6. Serve the Thai Yellow Vegetable Curry hot with steamed rice.

Notes:

1. The original recipe calls for some curry powder. I used sambar powder instead. I didn’t find any discernible difference in the taste of the Thai Yellow Vegetable Curry, as I used the sambar powder in very little quantity.
2. If you do not have lemongrass stalks, but have leaves instead, use about 1 handful of the leaves in this recipe.
3. Paneer can be substituted with tofu.
4. Indian ginger and lemon zest have been used in this recipe, in place of Thai galangal and kaffir lime leaves. I didn’t find any discernible change in the taste of the curry due to these substitutions. If you are able to get hold of the original ingredients, you can use them instead.
5. I have used ordinary Indian green chillies here, instead of Thai bird’s eye chillies. If you have the latter, though, please do go ahead and use them.
6. Make sure you grind the curry paste smoothly, for best results.
7. I used a 200 ml pack of Dabur Coconut Milk to make this curry, which yielded just about 1 cup of thick milk. You can use home-made coconut milk instead.
8. You can use Italian basil in this dish, if you do not have access to Thai basil.
9. You can add in any vegetables of your choice. I used the veggies that I had handy, to make this Thai Yellow Vegetable Curry.
10. Do not cook the curry too much after adding the coconut milk. Once it comes to a boil, lower the flame and let the curry simmer for a couple of minutes, and that’s it!

****************This post is for the Foodie Monday Blog Hop. The theme for this week is ‘Asian dishes’.

I’m sending this recipe to Fiesta Friday #231. The co-hosts this week are Antonia @ Zoale.com and Laurena @ Life Diet Health.