adventures at the asian market

last thursday afternoon we examined my refrigerator, assessed its contents, and set a menu for dinner: red thai curry. we headed to the local grocery for the missing ingredients. this resulted in frustration: no curry paste. we walked a couple blocks south to the asian market - success. this place was neat. in addition to all the necessary ingredients, we also found some interesting extras: shelves full of colorful asian candies, chopsticks, rice cookers, 50-pound bags of every variety of rice imaginable (including black rice), live crabs and prawns crawling out of wooden crates, fresh produce - the majority of which neither of us could name. two items of particular interest: fried tofu blocks and frozen vegetable spring rolls. we purchased all the ingredients for curry along with the fried tofu and spring rolls.

we cut the blocks of tofu into bite size pieces and threw them and the veggie rolls into a pan with a little olive oil. toasted until golden brown. served with three dipping options: gyoza sauce, red thai chili sauce, and garlic ginger sauce. excellent afternoon snack.

red thai curry for dinner. no images as we didn't want to highlight our geekiness by taking food pictures in front of our dinner guest, punky, who probably wouldn't have minded or even noticed an increase in geek factor.

recipe:

1 medium onion, diced

1 tbsp oil

2 gloves garlic, minced

2 tsp red curry paste (be certain that it doesn't contain oysters or any other fishy ingredients)

1/4 cup water

1 can coconut milk

1 block firm tofu (not the fried tofu mentioned above, although i suppose you could opt to use it)

several basil leaves (chopped)

vegetables - we used red pepper, orange pepper, cauliflower, broccoli, carrots

salt to taste

cook the onions in a large pot until translucent.

reduce heat, add garlic and curry paste, and cook for about a minute.
stir in coconut milk and water and bring to a boil.

add vegetables and return to a boil.

reduce heat and cover for 2 minutes.

add tofu and basil and simmer, partially covered, until vegetables are tender.

serve over rice - we used jasmine brown rice.