Thai Chicken and Aubergine Yellow Curry – The Basic Recipe

Thai Chicken and Aubergine Yellow Curry

Thai Chicken and Aubergine Yellow Curry

It’s time for a good old Thai curry! I was just revising the Thai recipes I’ve already posted and was amazed to discovered that I haven’t posted a Thai curry yet! Specially considering that I cook one at least every two weeks if not once a week. Thai curries are so a part of our weekly menu that I guess I didn’t consider making  a post about them until today, when I realised that they are totally worth sharing; not only because their deliciousness but also because they can become  a staple of any household menu : they’re easy and quick to put together, and you can use virtually any protein and vegetable available to turn an ordinary week-day supper in a special one, even cooking it for guests. All you need is to always have coconut milk, a good quality curry paste and Jasmine or Basmati rice in your pantry and let your imagination do the rest of the work!

Of course, you can always make your own curry paste from scratch if you have a good Asian market nearby where to get the right ingredients. This would make the preparation a little more time-consuming, but you can make big quantities in advance to store. However, in terms of practicality, I find that there are really good bought curry pastes that use no artificial additives and preservatives.

Today’s recipe is the basic method I always use to cook Thai curries, feel free to change the curry paste (red, green), the vegetables and the protein source. They can be easily turned into a vegan dish by replacing the fish sauce with soy sauce and the meat with tofu.

Thai curries entered my life almost ten years ago, when I was living in Australia for some months (such a good and dear memory to me!) and my Aussie housemate and good friend used to cook them regularly for supper. I had never tried a Thai curry before at that time, and it was “love at first bite” Besides, Thai restaurants and take away in Australia are sooo good that I also enjoyed  a lot of South-East Asian food when eating out.

Back at home, I made sure to find the ingredients to keep cooking them, a little bit harder to find in Spain, but possible if you look eagerly. In Australia you can find everything in a regular supermarket. The UK is a good place to stock up if you have the chance and of course, it is possible to buy online as well!

Let’s cook now, I hope you like it as much as I do!

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Nyonya Kari Ayam (Chicken Curry) and some good reading

A new curry recipe! Today I’m sharing a Chinese/Malaysian fusion chicken curry from Nyonya cuisine. Doing my research for the recipe; I became really intrigued by Nyonya cultural background and found some wonderful reading about it that I would like to briefly share with you in order to fully understand and appreciate this curry we are making today (*).

I’ve always thought that a country’s cuisine is a very holistic approach to discover its history, culture and idiosyncrasies; cooking something exotic (to us) is such a wonderful way of travelling without leaving your home, analogous to reading one of those great books that transport you to a different place. I can get so inspired by world’s cuisines that I get to experience a little obsession with the subject, searching, reading and going into expeditions to find ingredients and cook!

(*)The Peranakan or the Baba Nyonya community (also known as the Straits Chinese), evolved in the fifteenth century when the Chinese arrived in Malacca and intermarriage with local women took place. The Peranakan culture is a unique blend of two cultures – Malay and Chinese – intermixed into a fascinating synthesis with elements of Javanese, Batak, Thai and British cultures. Today, they are found throughout Malaysia and Singapore with strongholds in Malacca, Singapore and Penang.

The word Peranakan is derived from the Malay word ‘anak’ which means ‘child’. The term refers to the local-born as well as the offspring of foreigner-native union. Baba is the term for the male and Nyonya for the female.

Peranakan food is a wonderful combination of Malay and Chinese cuisine with influences from Indonesia, Thailand, India, Holland, Portugal and England. Nyonya food is clearly unique and Malaysian/Singaporean in identity. Using ingredients such as galangal, serai, chillies, tumeric, ginger, tau cheow, tamarind, lime juice, belachan, buah keras, gula Melaka; spices such as star anise, cinnamon, cardamom, cloves, nutmeg and leaves such as daun kesum, daun kaduk, daun cekok, daun limau perut and pandan.

(*)Extracted from: Lee, Su Kim, 2008. The Peranakan Culture: Resurgence or Dissapearance? SARI, Vol. 26, 161-170, 

I hope that after knowing a little more about this wonderful culture you feel like tasting it with the following unique curry recipe. Trust me, the flavour will surprise you, is neither Indian nor Thai, is just Nyonya, and it’s delicious!

Indian Squid Curry – Madhur Jaffrey Recipe

Indian Squid Curry

I’ve already introduced my favourite Thai recipe book and today is the turn of my favourite Indian cuisine author.  I’m sharing a recipe from “Curry Easy” a fantastic recipe book from Madhur Jaffery. Her approach to Indian cooking is both simple and authentic at the same time. Her recipes turn out so good that we had drastically reduced our visits to Indian restaurants, because we found ourselves saying: what for? let’s cook it at home, that it tastes as good or sometimes even better than the restaurant food!

Living in the coast, in a fisher’s town, the other day an indecent amount of fresh squid came to may hands (it was already clean fortunately). I didn’t know what to do with it! Although there are endless Spanish recipes to cook it, I’m not very experienced in preparing seafood, I find it quite difficult actually, that’s why I usually order it at restaurants instead of cooking it home. But this time  I remembered this Indian recipe that I never tried before and decided to face the challenge! I added my touch by including some fresh mushrooms and used stock instead of water for the sauce.

It is really easy and the result is amazing! Squid flavour is very strong, so make sure you like it or replace it by any other seafood or fish of your choice. The good thing is that I got to cook all the squid and this curry makes a great left-over or it can be freeze for future use.

Curry Vegetable Soup with Tofu. Mediterranean-Chinese fusion

The other day I was in the mood for a very light meal and in much need of a little detox and I thought: why not a simple a vegetable soup?  just some in-season veggies and some stock, period. And I realised I have not posted a basic vegetable soup yet and it would be a good recipe to share. So I went to a little grocery store around the corner and came back home with what I found there; a mix of winter and spring vegetables plus something I already had at home.

However… I couldn’t help myself and I end up turning my Mediterranean vegetable soup into a Chinese-inspired dish by adding some curry powder, ginger and tofu, among other Chinese flavours, to the mix and the result was wonderful! Shall we take a look at it?

Indian Minced Beef Curry

Indian MInced Beef Curry

As I’ve already told you, curries of every kind are a regular meal in our home, we love curries!

We usually freeze fish and meat after grocery shopping and once every few weeks we stop buying for a while to use all the frozen stock. This was the case, we had some mince beef that had to be used: I got creative an instead of making hamburgers I went for an Indian inspiration curry. The fact that we had 1 litre of low-fat Greek yogurt in the fridge also contributed to the idea…

It was delicious, and it is very easy to prepare. You can always replace minced beef with any other meat or vegetable protein that you have available.

I invite you to take a look at the recipe!

Thai Curried Pumpkin Soup

The other day, a good friend of mine gave me some wonderful organic pumpkins from her home vegetable patch. Pumpkin is one of my most-liked veggies and I cook it in different ways, being of them, of course, soup. This time, I  first thought of preparing a pumpkin version of the ginger and curry soup I usually make with carrots. But then, while doing something else, a whole recipe took shape in my mind: a Thai-style curried soup.

Since Thai food is among my favourite foods, it is usually my choice for special occasions. I always cook Thai for birthdays celebrations (love ones and mine),  for my guests (all my friends have tasted my Thai cooking) and on weekends when we fancy something special. I even cooked a Thai green curry the last Christmas eve! However, once in a while I cook Thai just because is delicious, conforming and I feel like it. This was the case and here is the recipe I hope you will enjoy as much as we did at home.