Instead of sleeping in until noon this Sunday as our bodies demanded from us, we woke up early and slogged our way across town to the famous Blue Elephant Thai Cooking School. The Blue Elephant is Thailand's version of Le Cordon Bleu and offers a range of classes to suit everyone, from beginners to serious foodies to professionals, interested in Thai cooking. And lucky me, I received a half-day class from Pem last week as a birthday present!
After a brief market tour in Saphan Kwai, we were given a brief demonstration before we got down to chopping herbs, pounding curry paste and mixing our first dish of the day - red curry sauce. The Blue Elephant's original recipe calls for tilapia, or plaa tub tim, but we made a vegan version with tofu.
Thai cuisine is renowned for its complexity of flavors in a single dish and this is a glorious example of how sweet, salty and spicy come together. Of the four dishes we made, this is the one that disappeared fastest. Check out the recipe below!
Several of these ingredients are the essential building blocks of flavor in Thai cooking - fresh chillies, kaffir lime leaves, coconut milk, dried shrimp and fish sauce. You can substitute the fish sauce for soy sauce and omit the dried shrimp to keep it vegan.
Serves 2
Ingredients:
1 tb vegetable oil
1 tb red curry paste (either homemade or pre-prepared)*
70 ml coconut milk
15 leaves sweet basil, julienned
1 tb cream of coconut milk (which can be skimmed from the top of separated coconut milk)
4 kaffir lime leaves, julienned
1 big red chili, de-seeded and finely sliced
80 grams firm tofu, cut into bite-size squares and pre-stir-fried until cooked through
1 tb palm sugar (or regular white sugar)
1 tb soy sauce
Method:
1) Place the sliced red chili into a cup of water to curl while you cook. This will serve as a garnish.
2) Heat the oil in the wok until hot. Add the red curry paste and stir-fry until an aroma develops.
3) Slowly incorporate the coconut milk into the red curry paste.
4) Add the sugar and soy sauce and stir-fry for a few more seconds.
5) Add about three-quarters of the sweet basil and half of the kaffir lime leaves into the wok. Save the rest of the herbs for garnishing.
6) Add the tofu and any veggies you may want to add (baby corn or mushrooms would work well) and let simmer for a few minutes.
7) Remove from heat and place in serving dish. Spoon cream of coconut milk on top and then garnish with the chili curls, kaffir lime and basil leaves.
8) Enjoy with mixed brown and white rice!
*A note on red curry paste: There are several options of pre-prepared red curry paste these days which are huge time and energy savers. The only downside is that many often contain shrimp paste. Be sure to check ingredients on the label, or if you're feeling adventurous, try making your own using the recipe below! Many of these spices, including Blue Elephant products, can be found at The Gourmet Market or Spice Story at Siam Paragon.
5 dried big red chilies, soaked in water for fifteen minutes
1 coriander root
1/2 tb kaffir lime zest
1/2 tb galangal, finely sliced
1 and 1/2 tb lemongrass, finely sliced
5 cloves of garlic, peeled and roughly chopped
4 shallots, roughly chopped
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon roasted cumin seeds
1/2 teaspoon roasted coriander seeds
1/2 teaspoon white pepper powder
Method:
1) Squeeze excess water from the chillies.
2) Place all ingredients in food processor for a quick and easy red curry paste. Alternatively, ground by hand using a mortar and pestle for a nice aroma, putting in the dry ingredients first and then the wet (garlic, galangal, shallots).
This red curry paste will keep in an airtight container for about two weeks, or for one month in the freezer.
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