Mae Ploy is a highly regarded curry paste and can be found in some groceries in the asian section.
It has much better flavor than the "Thai Kitchen" crap you'll find in most US grocery stores. Also, it holds in the fridge for numerous months and you only use a few tablespoons (I like it hot!) per dish.
I buy mine on amazon.
I just made a great dish that was super cheap, easy, very filling and very tasty.
500g frozen/fresh broccoli €0.95 500g fresh Mushrooms €1.25 1 large onion €0.10 2 cloves garlic €0.10 250ml cream subsitute. €0.50 a few dabs of curry paste to taste. €0.20
Total cost €3.10. Makes about 5 servings for me.
for the cury paste I use something like this http://www.amazon.com/Mae-Ploy-Thai-Curry-Paste/dp/B0091UW4QS
for the cream subsitute use coconut milk (more expensive), soy cream (less expensive).
Saute your onions, throw in the garlic for 5 minutes. Throw in the broccolli with a bit of water to let them soften up and turn bright green, add the mushrooms. Once everything is smelling nice pour in the cream with equal parts water. let it come to a simmer. Add the curry paste.
Put it over rice, or my current favourite, Buckwheat.
Excellent, if you like Thai red curry paste. May Ploy is one of the best respected brands of Thai products out there, and it makes a true restaurant quality curry. We are never without this or their panang curry paste in our kitchen. The red is the most versatile.
https://www.amazon.com/Thai-Curry-Paste-Mae-Ploy/dp/B0091UW4QS
My favorite is curritos/curry burritos (or a stuffed pita if fusion isn't your style ha). Easier to eat than a bowl of curry and rice, just as delicious/filling. You can just pack them full of nutrient dense/cheap food, we usually go with plant based stuff cause it is dirt cheap, delicious, and super filling. We usually will do garbanzos or lentils, carrots, onions, potatoes, some kind of seed/nut (I like pumpkin seeds), quinoa/brown rice, tomatoes, spinach, etc... and then one of the Mae Ploy pastes. Tons of fiber, protein, carbs, and nutrients.
I really like Mae Ploy. It's a recipie that I made up, loosely based on the directions on the container.
Heat 1 Tbls avocado oil in a pot
add 2 Tbls red curry paste and heat for about a minute
add half a can of coconut milk
when that's heated add about a cup of chicken, I had some from a rotisserie bird, but raw works too, just cook longer
Then some mushrooms.
Finally add the remaining coconut milk and 1/2 cup chicken broth or water.
Cook until the chicken is nicely heated (or cooked through) add Sambal Oleck if you need additional heat.
You are in luck if you can lay hands on Thai red curry paste. Most of the Chicken Satay recipes that I have tried use red curry paste, not a generic "curry powder". The curry gives the distinctive flavor, s you want to use it, but can substitute red paste for the powder. I would at least double the paste over the powder measurement and would heat the paste in the fat cap from the coconut milk first, but just straight mixing it and at the same quantity as for the power, the way they call for, is not going to be bad.
The quantity of paste that you use depends on your love of spiciness as well as on the spiciness of the paste you select. Mae Ploy is my favorite brand, because though hot, it is well balanced.
Mae Ploy paste is IM(never)HO the best. I have linked the red, but for each color they top most rankings. I keep red and green in the fridge at all times. Red is mellower/more rounded; green is more herbal and spicy. I don't bother with the yellow, because that is primarily a dried spice set of flavors, that I can easily make with whole spices that I store in my freezer. Chaokoh coconut milk is also the best choice for me.
The red and green pastes are mainly fresh ingredients that can be hard to source, so a quality bought paste gives you a better general result if sourcing is a problem. That said, the favorite curry paste in this house is a cilantro curry that is a flavor balanced mix of just black pepper, garlic and cilantro (with roots in the growing season), salted with fish sauce. I ate it as the special in a neighborhood Thai place;because we ate there all the time managed to get a kitchen trip to see how it was done - dead simple. A lot of Thai pastes are made with just a few ingredients when you read regional or home cooking recipes.
I have been cooking Thai for probably longer than she has been alive, but I recommend Hot Thai Kitchen for making accessible the fundamentals of Thai food. She is classically trained to French cooking and a Thai ex pat in Canada, so she is very clear for western cook to understand and replicate.
SO EASY:
Curry paste
* You can buy this on Amazon
* https://www.amazon.com/Mae-Ploy-Thai-Curry-Paste/dp/B0091UW4QS/ref=sr_1_1_a_it?ie=UTF8&qid=1478982408&sr=8-1&keywords=thai+curry+paste
* Note that all but the Yellow curry paste from Mae Ploy contain shrimp paste, so keep that in mind.
Coconut Cream
* Buy something like this at the store; prices are absurd on Amazon, so you'll want to shop local. You can usually find something for $1-$2 per can:
* https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/236x/bc/60/0b/bc600b27f226d6e9371824f790ceea2e.jpg
* You want coconut cream/milk in a CAN. Not watery, watered down 'coconut milk' packaged in a box for drinking, this won't work. The can will be filled with a little bit of coconut water and the rest will be a solid cream that melts when you cook it.
Instructions
All you have to do is put a little oil in a saucepan and turn the heat to medium. Put 1-2 tablespoon of the curry paste in the oil and let it simmer for a bit, making sure that you play around with it and ensure that it's getting heated thoroughly. After 5 or so minutes of this (the curry paste begins to get ever so slightly golden brown), lower the heat to a simmer and dump the jar of coconut cream into the saucepan. As the cream melts, stir the mixture well. Let simmer for 5 - 10 more minutes.
Done
You now have curry that tastes exactly like it does in a restaurant (most restaurants actually use curry pastes.)
Combine with your protein of choice, some veggies, pour over rice, whatever you want.
https://www.amazon.com/Mae-Ploy-Red-Curry-Paste/dp/B0091UW4QS/ref=sr_1_2_a_it?ie=UTF8&qid=1498371833&sr=8-2&keywords=mae+ploy Here try this! They have it on Amazon :)
If you have coconut milk and did not automatically think of Thai curry, it is unlikely that your pantry is ideally suited to whipping one up without a bit of shopping, so I will go in another direction from the previous thoughts.
I will start is a similar place, however, because it is exquisite and most folks can make it anytime. By volume, mix coconut milk, brown sugar and eggs to make an egg custard/flan/creme brulee base. You can go all fancy with palm sugar and duck eggs or use the brown sugar left from Christmas toll house cookies and hen eggs. The coconut milk can is your measuring vessel. Whisk all 3 well in a mixing bowl, strain if you like for brownie points, place in a pie plate in a baking dish half filled with water and bake at 350F until firm halfway to the center and just a little jiggly from there to the middle. Cut off and crack the oven for an hour, then remove and cool to room temp. Chill for longer storage. Serve in tiny amounts. It is rich and delicious.
A white or yellow cake mix made with coconut milk (the separate liquids in the can well mixed), in place of the water is a fine start for a coconut cake. Make a simple confectioners sugar "buttercream" using the canned milk as the dairy while the cake bakes. When the cake comes from the oven prick the layers a bit and pour the small, remaining part of the can over the layers and let cool together in the pan about 10 minutes. Remove to a rack, then cool the layers and frost with the coconut buttercream. If you have flaked on hand, garnish the cake with that, as lavishly as convenient. You can bake the whole mix in a 9x13 glass and skip the removal bit, which may make storage at home a bit handier.
Using half water and half coconut milk as the liquid for cooking rice makes a luxe bed for a spicy "over rice" dish. You can google any protein you have stockpiled and "over coconut rice" to find several recipes for several cuisines - I never tried searching possum over coconut rice, but you get the idea.
Using nut milks in place of dairy has gotten a bit trendy; I have eaten, but not made, a pina colada pancake breakfast (quite satisfactory) where the pancakes were made with coconut milk, layered with hot crushed pineapple then "syruped" with a brown sugar rum concoction. If you think about flavors you like with coconut and consider the dairy part, you may be inspired.
... and because Thai curry really is great, hit Amazon for Mae Ploy Paste - or green or yellow - they are different and homemade is great - along with Squid brand fish sauce and you are set up for a pretty instant, always delicious meal. Take the thick liquid from your unmixed can of coconut milk, fry the amount of paste to your taste (1-2 T here), until enough water has evaporated for the coconut oil to start splitting from the paste. If done at a medium heat, the spices of the paste will be toasted at about the same time. "Return of the oil" is the poetic phrase for this, but it really just means that enough oil has split and been flavored with the spices to carry through flavoring the whole dish. Pour in the rest of the can of coconut milk, then add your solids. Any protein and veg combo that appeals to you will work, just time the additions (or the size of cutting the pieces) so that it all gets done at the same time. Salt with fish sauce; serve over rice. In non Corona times, I would emphasize how much better this is with lots of fresh herbs, limes, and hot condiments, but it is an outstanding, flexible meal with nothing more than coconut milk, paste, fish sauce, rice and random market finds.
I learned to make thai red curry by watching this video.
Couple of things I do:
I haven't been able to find kaffir lime leaves or thai basil without driving 40-50 miles, so I just leave them out and I'll squeeze a little bit of lime juice in the curry. Not super authentic or restaurant quality, but it makes something that tastes good. Thai basil is especially excellent though, and if you can find that, definitely add it.
I don't like the brand of thai curry pastes you can get at the grocery store (here it's Thai Kitchen), they just taste off to me. However, Mae Ploy is a great brand you can get off of Amazon and is a much better value, imo. A much larger container that will last you forever (mine's been in my fridge a couple of years now and it still hasn't gone bad) and only a dollar or so more expensive than the grocery store stuff.
I've made thai curry with low fat coconut milk before. Honestly, if you have health concerns about the fat/caloric intake, just make it less often and eat as a treat. Low fat coconut milk doesn't temper the heat, no matter how little paste you use, and you'll just end up a sad fire breathing dragon. Cook's Illustrated did a test of popular brands - I use Thai Kitchen since it's what I can find in the grocery store.
I don't eat vegetarian/vegan, but thai curry is extremely versatile in what you can put in it. I usually eat red curry and my absolute favorite addition to it is pineapple. As far as vegetables, I usually put peas, carrots, bell peppers, and tomatoes. As a general rule, stay away from green leafy things, but feel free load it with a ton of vegetables and experiment! If you/anyone you serve eats meat, just about any kind of meat will go well. Chicken, pork, beef, and fish all work really well. Squid is actually really amazing for red curry if you're feeling fancy.
I'll eat it over just about any kind of rice but jasmine is the best.
Roast it to drive off extra water, but you do not need to brown it. Puree it and make a thai red curry pumpkin soup. You want about equal volumes of coconut milk and puree, give or take. You want to fry some red curry paste in the creamy top of the coconut milk until the milk and paste has little oil puddles - that tells you that the spice mix has gotten above the boiling point of water and has toasted. Mix in the rest of the puree and the coconut milk; "salt" with fish sauce. I use Mae Ploy paste and Chaokoh coconut milk, salted with Squid brand fish sauce for this standard Autumn soup around here. About a 1T knob of paste per can of coconut milk, but erring on the generous side; fish sauce to taste. Hot Thai Kitchen has some red curry paste options andis my go to Thai inspiration site if you want to make a scratch paste.
You can also use a little coconut milk to toast off some paste, then mix with mayo (Kewpie for bonus points/Dukes for hitting the same notes) to make a dressing for a pumpkin cubes "potato salad". Same idea as potato salad, but pull out all your favorite kitchen sink Asian veg.
There are a thousand ways to get to Thai coconut soup, some very involved and some dead easy. The down and dirty way to get there is Mae Ploy Red Thai curry paste, [chaokoh coconut milk](https://www.amazon.com/Chaokoh-Coconut-Milk-13-5-Ounce-Pack/dp/B00473PVVO, and canned pumpkin or yams. I like 2 part coconut milk to one part mashed orange veg. Fry 1 T red curry paste in the head of one can of the coconut milk for every 2 cans of coconut milk you are using, until the cream is fully infused and beginning to break, which you can tell by seeing little dots of red oil on the surface, then add the rest of the milk and the pureed orange veg. Heat and serve. If you have some folks who are going to like spice, steal the head of a third of the coconut milk you are using and add about half as much red curry paste as you have cream and cook until the oil returns, then serve that along side the soup as a spicy add in according to taste.
I get mine on Amazon because I am super lazy. So far it works great! I also have their green curry paste.
My favorite Thai dish to order is red Thai curry w/o rice BUT! You'll need to ask the restaurant to make it without sugar. Most restaurants are perfectly willing to do this for you, and my local restaurant has come to know that it's my regular order.
Alternatively, I'd highly recommend this super easy (once you own red Thai curry paste) recipe that I make every week. It feeds us for three days or more straight and gets to the heart of my Asian food cravings without fail.
I also have a pretty easy recipe for Indian butter chicken which, just, yum.
Thai Turkey Red Curry
Requires some unusual ingredients. Takes about ~15 minutes to cook and is hearty, spicy, & super YUMMY.
Ingredients
8.5 oz White Turkey meat, shredded
1 tbsp butter
4 tbsp Mae Ploy Red Curry Paste http://www.amazon.com/Mae-Ploy-Thai-Curry-Paste/dp/B0091UW4QS/
2 tbsp Mongolian Fire Oil http://www.amazon.com/House-Tsang-Mongolian-Fire-Oil/dp/B005K538YK/
1 can Coconut Cream
1 tsp dried porcini mushroom powder
1/4 c. cilantro leaves
Frying pan and saucepan
Instructions:
1) Heat medium saucepan to low
2) Add coconut cream, mongolian fire oil, and 3 tbsp of red curry paste.
3) Stir and break up all curry. When simmering lightly, add porcini powder
4) At the same time, heat the frying pan to medium high
5) Place 1 tbsp butter + 1 tbsp red curry paste, stir.
6) When sizzling lightly, add turkey and cilantro, stir thoroughly
7) Fry for ~5-6 minutes, until golden brown
8) Dump turkey and butter into coconut milk
Stir evenly. Add water if desired. Nom!
Pairings: Wash down with a tall glass of micellar casein.
The Count:
Serves 2
Calories: 920
Fat: 70g
Carbs: 8.6
Protein: 61.8
I use this curry paste: http://www.amazon.com/Mae-Ploy-Thai-Curry-Paste/dp/B0091UW4QS/ref=sr_1_2?rps=1&ie=UTF8&qid=1441980290&sr=8-2&keywords=curry+paste
Would I just do the same thing?