Mushroom and butternut squash red Thai curry
Ingredients:
- 30g lemongrass
- 1 lime
- 30g ginger
- 30g garlic (about 6 cloves)
- some red chillies (depending how spicy they are)
- 1 teaspoons salt
- 2 teaspoons cumin powder
- 2 teaspoons coriander powder
- 1 teaspoons turmeric powder
- 0.5 teaspoon Kashmiri chilli powder
- 60 twists of black pepper (about 2 teaspoons)
- olive oil
- 400g can of coconut milk
- 400g tofu
- 400g butternut squash
- 300g fresh shiitake mushrooms
- 200g sugar snap peas
- 20g Thai basil
- wholegrain rice
Methods:
- Start boiling the rice.
- Peal a 400g chunk of your butternut squash and chop it into bite-sized cubes.
- Make the curry paste. Finely chop the lemongrass. Peel the lime with a vegetable peeler and finely chop the peel. Very roughly chop the ginger (no need to peel it), garlic and chillies. Place all of them in a bowl. Add salt, spices - cumin, coriander, turmeric, chilli powder and black pepper - and a splash of water. Handblender everything into a paste.
- Pre-heat a Dutch oven with a splash of oil. Add the curry paste and fry for a couple of minutes, until it smells really good. Don’t let it stick to the bottom of the pot.
- Add the coconut milk, the butternut squash cubes and just enough water to cover them.
- Pre-heat a pan with a splash of oil. Cube the tofu and start frying it.
- Slice shiitake mushrooms into strips.
- Once the tofu cubes are golden on most sides, add them to the curry. Add more oil to the pan and start frying the mushrooms.
- Cut the peeled lime into wedges.
- Trim the woody stalks of the sugar snap peas and add them to the curry.
- Add fried mushrooms to the curry and wait for the butternut squash and sugar snap peas to reach the desired level of tenderness.
- Take off the heat, stir in Thai basil leaves. Taste and adjust for salt and spiciness (chilli powder).
- Serve with rice and lime wedges on the side.