Here is my favorite Autumnal celebratory recipie. It pays off best with a
visit to an Asian market for *starred ingredients, though I give
substitutions for those of you who lack Asian markets. I used to make it
with canned curry paste and c*c*nut milk, but this version is much lower
fat and fresher tasting. It's very spicy & warming, but feels light too.
Thai-Style Green Curry Pumpkin
serves 4
takes about an hour, with multitasking
2 cups non-dairy milk ( mix&match the following:
vanilla lofat soymilk is nice (aseptic box kind)
use some strong lemongrass tea (bulk herbs @ NFS)
if you can't get *fresh lemongrass for curry paste
a little lofat c*c*nut milk if you can spare the grams
@ trader joe's: it's still very fatty 8-(
watch out, some rice milks curdle under heat
dairy milk would be nasty! don't try it!!
water or ligkt stock is fine)
fresh green curry past (recipie below)
1 small pumpkin
1 red pepper
3-4 handfuls of green beans
2 ears corn kernels, cut off the cob
lime juice
fresh basil leaves, chopped (*purple thai basil is very good in this)
a little shoyu
2 cups brown basmati rice
Start the pumpkin cooking. I stab mine repeatedly, then nuke it about 10
min, cut & remove the seeds, then nuke it another 10 min. You can do more
or less the same thing in a big put with a steamer, or in the oven
(slooooow). I find that squashes are *much* easier to cut once they've
cooked a bit -- unless you have slender, razor sharp chef's knife. In
any case, cook the darn thing thing whatever way makes you happiest.
Start the rice cooking.
Whiz up the green curry paste. Put 1/2 your something-milk in a biggish
pan, add the curry paste, and simmer gently & stir often, meanwhile doing
other things.
Trim & chop the green beans (1 cm diagonals?) and add them to pan on stove.
When the pumpkin is done, scoop it out from th skin, and whiz or mush it
with the rest of your something-milk. Add to the pot on the stove. From now
on, keep the heat very low and stir even oftener.
Cut the pepper and add. Un-cob the corn, and add. Stir Stir Stir Stir.
Chop the basil and add. Juice the lime and add. Add a little shoyu (not
much! it will kill the light flavor). Stir. Taste -- is it done yet?
Hopefully the rice is done too.
Garnish with cilantro leaves.
Green Curry Paste:
1/4-1/8 onion (how big is your onion?)
4-8 cloves garlic (how much do you like garlic?)
8-10 slices fresh ginger (*asian market if necessary)
1-2 slices fresh *galanga (1/2 tsp dried?)
(sub another coupla slices ginger)
1/2 bunch cilantro (*asian market if necessary)
1-3 jalapenos (how hot do you like things? I use 2)
(sub *thai bird peppers if you like)
1 stalk *lemongrass
(sub strong lemongrass tea for liquid in curry,
or use some lemon zest)
a few *lime leaves (or use some lime zest)
salt
Remove jalapeno stems but use seeds. Trim off long cilantro stems. Cut off
the root-nub and grassy ends of lemongrass, keeping about the lower 6" or
so, which gets cut up a bit. Put everything in your preferred
whizzer-gizmo, and whiz it up good, adding a little water as necesssary.
You're aiming for a lumpy paste-ish texture.
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