Mushroom and pumpkin 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)
- sunflower oil
- 400g can of coconut cream
- 40g unrefined sugar (e.g. coconut sugar or jaggery)
- 280g tofu
- 500g pumpkin or butternut squash
- 150g fresh shiitake mushrooms
- 20g Thai basil
- wholegrain rice
Methods:
- Start boiling the rice.
- First make the curry paste. Finely chop the lemongrass. Peel the lime with a vegetable peeler. Very roughly chop the lime peels, ginger (no need to peel it), garlic and chillies. Place all of them in a bowl. Add the salt and the spices - cumin, coriander, turmeric, chilli powder and black pepper. Handblender everything into a paste. Add a splash of water if needed to help the blending process.
- In a Dutch oven, heat a bit 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 cream and unrefined sugar, and let it simmer.
- Peal the pumpkin, chop it into bite-sized cubes and add it to the curry. Add a bit of water if needed to cover the pumpkin.
- Slice shiitake mushrooms into strips and fry them in a bit of oil until golden on all sides. Add them into the curry.
- Once the pumpkin is tender, take off the heat and stir in Thai basil leaves. Taste and adjust salt, acidity (lime juice), spiciness (chilli powder) and sweetness (unrefined sugar).
- Serve with rice and lime wedges on the side.