Thai vegan green curry

First I started with a simple paste made with a small piece of ginger (peeled), one shallot (also peeled), fresh coriander (with stalks), green chili (not too much for me, maybe one or two), and fresh lemon grass (one stick). If you have kaffir lime leaves or rind, the are good too, apparently, but I didn't have any so I added a little lemon juice. Mush with a mortar and pestle or with a blender (I used the blender, too hot for the mortar and pestle!) adding salt towards the end.

Now, the only thing in the paste that came from the garden was coriander, and frozen (from last year) as this year my plant died! I also have lots of frozen chills to use, and a little plant that don't even have flowers yet!

The veggies: 1 carrot, 2 yellow zucchini, a few tomatoes, a few broccolini, borage tips, green capsicum, Thai mint, basil, onion weed flowers and borage flowers to decorate.

then: organic tofu and coconut cream.

I cut the tofu and placed it in a pot with the coconut cream plus one can of water (to rinse the coconut cream can). Added the green curry paste and simmered the lot for 10 minutes and then I added the rest of the vegetables in this order: carrots, borage tips, capsicum, zucchini, broccolini, tomatoes (leave a couple of minutes between each vegetable). To stir I used a lemongrass stalk. Then I tasted for salt then I added the herbs and onion weed flowers (because they were frozen), turned the heat off and cover the pot with a lid for 5 minutes. Then I added the borage flowers.

Actually, the curry paste took longer than the curry to make! Serve hot with rice.

Photos and recipes by Alessandra Zecchini ©

Comments

How to make Rose Turkish Delights (Lokum), and Sweet New Zealand

Rose Turkish Delights (Lokum) Before I start I would like to say that I don't have a sugar thermometer, essential if you are really into confectionery, and that I didn't use much sugar for these Turkish delights. Many recipes use much more sugar, and it is not that I wanted to make a low sugar treat here (it is still pretty sweet), it is just that making it at home really makes me realize how much sugar there is already in my diet, and if I can have something with a little less... well, why not! This method is 'home friendly' i.e. these can be made at home with very little effort and equipment, and the recipe comes from my book Sweet As... where I also have the recipe for lavender and orange blossom Turkish Delights. Ingredients 1 l water 300 g sugar 2 tbsp lemon juice 100 g cornflour 1 tbsp frozen raspberries 1 tbsp rose water icing sugar (very little) and cornflour (lots) to dust. In a pot put hal

Home Made Marzipan Sweets

This is another recipe from my book Sweet As , and something that I love to make for Xmas. I would like to say that for marzipan you should get the best almonds around, natural, but here in New Zealand the almonds taste different from the ones in Italy. They are imported, not sure where from most of the time, but they are not top grade almonds. Still, with a few tips, you can make your marzipan taste great even with 'regular' almonds! Buy them natural, not blanched, you need to blanche then yourself or the result will be too dry. To blanch them you need to put them in boiling water for a couple of minutes, and then add cold water and take the skin off, one by one. For this recipe you will need: 200 g almonds 100 g icing sugar 5 apricot kernels. As I was saying before, the almond here have little taste, so I like to collect the stones from apricot and get the almonds out. They are a real pain to crack! In the photo above you can see apricot stones and kernels. The apricot kernel

Silver beet Paneer, a variation of Palak Paneer

The other day I showed you my curry made with borage , ‘invented’ because I have tons of it in the garden! The other green-leaf crop that does well in Auckland is silver beet. My old plants (from last year!) got so tall that I started collecting only the little leaves from the stalks, and they look like spinach. One of my favourite Indian dishes is Palak Paneer (or Panir), spinach with panir cottage cheese, and this variation is made using my silver beet. I washed (many times!) the small silver beet leaves, and then I steamed them and drain them. In a heavy pot I heated 2 tbsp of vegetable oil (I used rice bran oil) and sautéed for 30 seconds: 1/2 tsp ground cumin 1/2 tsp ground coriander 1 tsp turmeric 1/3 tsp ground chili then I added 2 roughly chopped shallots and, after 3 minutes, a good pinch of salt and the cooked silver beet. I cooked everything on low for about 20 minutes (you may need to add just a little water if the silver beet is too dry) and then finely pureed the content

Only Recipes, by Alessandra Zecchini ©

Search This Blog