You know you don't always have to follow the cooking instruction on the back of the instant sauce mix. Instead of using fruits and meat as suggested by my Thai red curry paste, I've decided use it as the base for simple vegetable red curry stew.
Ingredients?
- 1 packet of Thai red curry paste
- 1 small bag of oyster mushroom
- 1 Chinese eggplant (the long and skinny kind)
- 1 medium broccoli
- 1/2 cabbage
- 1 can of coconut milk
- 1 can of diced tomatoes
- 1 tablespoon of fish sauce
- 1 tablespoon of oyster sauce
- 1/4 teaspoon of salt
- 1/4 teaspoon of black pepper
- Some olive oil
- Some steamed white or brown rice (optional)
How?
Peel and slice the onion. Chop the cabbage into large pieces. Separate the broccoli florets into smaller pieces. Cut off the tough outer section from the broccoli stem and chop the tender center into bite size pieces. Slice the eggplant diagonally.
Drizzle just enough olive oil to the pan to evenly coat the bottom, turn to medium high heat. Add in the onion along with some salt and pepper. Cook till the edge of the onion turns slightly browned.
Add in the red curry paste and heat it up a little. Add in the broccoli, mushroom, and eggplant. Stir and mix well with the curry paste.
Add in the cabbage. It might pile up like a small mountain but will gradually wilt down once heated up. Carefully give it a quick stir once a while. Pour in one can of diced tomatoes along with its juice. Also pour in the coconut milk, add the fish sauce and oyster sauce.
Bring to a boil then keep the pot at a gently boiling state. Cook till the broccoli reaches desired texture. Taste and adjust the saltiness level with fish sauce. I prefer my veggies on the softer side so the stew took about 30 minutes for me.
Serve over steamed rice.
You can definitely add some protein to the stew. Dark chicken meat or pork slices are two suitable options.
Never thought restaurant quality salad can be so easy to recreate at home until I really start serving these healthy greens this year. Sometimes I even think fancy salad is actually much easier to prepare compared to fixing up a sandwich or a quick stir fry. The keys are using fresh and a wide variety of ingredients for the salad. You can even bring it up to another level by putting in some extra work such as searing a steak or using homemade herbed croutons.
But don't go too far yet for this recipe especially plates after plates of food will be coming up soon during Thanksgiving. Get yourself a nicely cured ham slices or prosciutto at the grocery store and let's put together a big plate of salad greens.
Lettuce and prosciutto salad with poached egg -
Ingredients?
- 1 bag of organic salad greens (I used lettuce but arugula would be a good alternative)
- 8 slices of prosciutto
- Small handful of mozzarella balls
- 2 eggs
- 1 small baguette
- Some dried cranberries
- Some vinegar
Dressing:
- 3 kumquats
- Some extra virgin olive oil
- Some freshly ground black pepper
- Small pinch of fleur de sel
How?
Add all the salad dressing ingredients to a bowl and whisk till combined. Use few extra kumquats if a more sourish taste is preferred.
Thinly slice the baguette and transfer onto a baking dish. Slightly toast them in the oven with medium low heat till semi-crunchy. Remove from heat and set aside for later use.
Bring a small pot of water to a boil, add in few splashes of vinegar and make a swirl in the center. Lower the heat till gently bubbling. Crack the egg one at a time to a small bowl then pour into the center of the water. Takes about few minutes, use a slotted spoon to scoop out the eggs. If there are some whites floating around, save them for other dishes, do not waste food. Transfer poached eggs to a kitchen towel, which will help drawing out excess water.
Place the salad greens onto two serving plates. Drizzle the dressing throughout. Arrange the toasted bread slices, drained mozzarella balls, prosciutto, and dried cranberries around.
Gently transfer the poached eggs to the center of the salad. Oops! -
At first I thought just one small bag of lettuce won't fill me up at all. However, after putting all the ingredients together plus some toasted baguette slices, it's actually quite satisfying. Especially love the bites when I got both the saltiness from the prosciutto and the sweetness from the dried cranberries!
Other salad recipes:
