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Sunday, July 25, 2010

Kids + Curry = YUMMY?


Those who've been reading my blog know that we've welcomed our newest addition to our family this month!

Ladies, gents, and children, please welcome back, Our New Grill.

As crazy as it sounds, I am SO tired of grilled food. We've grilled steaks, dogs, burgers, tenderloins, mushrooms, asparagus, cabbage, sausages, corn, carrots, heck - I even grilled apricots for dessert one night.

 So tonight I will make curry. I will make a curry the ENTIRE family will love! Don't believe the kids will love it? Can't imagine what I will do to make this possible? Here's how!

Photo credit: Gulfnews


What you will need:

~ Red Curry Paste (super small jar - you only use a touch)
~ Fish sauce (easy to find, gross to think about)
~ Brown Sugar
~ 1-2 cans of coconut milk
~ Your choice of veggies (I use green beans, tiny shitake mushrooms, celery, carrots, garlic, green/red peppers, 1-2 parboiled potatoes, broccoli, white or yellow onion)
~ Meat (chicken, tofu or pork go extra well!)


What you will do:
Get Your Children Into The Kitchen!!! Call them in! Have them peel the carrots, carefully fill the pot of water for below, snap the beans' ends, open cans of coconut milk, anything! Just get them involved. Their perspective will make this dish the best it can be! And remember - they are your #1 taste testers!


Heat a pot of water separately from anything else. Boil your boneless chicken or pork for 8-12 min. until cooked. Drain and set aside. Sounds odd, but this will help your meat retain it's supple texture and thus will be more apt to absorbing the yummy curry flavors! ALSO - make a small pot of rice, but DON'T FORGET ABOUT IT! You don't want burnt rice. Yuck.
In a large pan, saute your veggies starting with your hardest veggies first. For me the order was broccoli, carrots, potatoes, celery, green peppers, onion, garlic and so forth. TIP: I often, and it's normally encouraged, to saute the onion and garlic first. But here I want these flavors to pop, so I am waiting until the end. Saute all veggies until soft.
Carefully pull your veggies out of the pan and set aside. In the same veggie pan, turn heat to low-medium. Add 1 1/2 tsp of curry sauce to 1 tbsp fish sauce, 1 1/2 tbsp brown sugar and 1 full can of coconut milk. Wisk well until fully mixed. Now, some like it sweeter, some saltier... I prefer creamier, so I generally add the coagulated part of an additional can of coconut milk.
Play around, see what you like! For sweeter, more brown sugar, for saltier, a little more fish sauce. But taste, taste, taste, because they all balance each other out, so consider this a chemistry experiment and get mixing! Don't forget to add your veggies and meat back into your curry sauce and let simmer for 5-12 minutes with a lid on...
This is a great time to prepare your plates with rice and a small salad. Top with your Curry and you are set to go! Bon Apetit!

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