Thai Red Curry(ish)

Thai Red Curry(ish)

Just put all this together in a pot one day, and it looked kind of like how I remember red curry looking. It was delish!!

Ingredients

Coconut oil
Beef - sliced
Garlic - half of a head, pressed
Red chilis - those little hard ones. 2 or 3 (to taste), finely diced
Mushrooms - handful of white button mushrooms, sliced
Coconut milk - 200ml or 250ml (something like that, didn't measure precisely)
Fish sauce
Red curry paste - generous spoonful
Lemon grass - a few (whole)

Thai basil - to taste, chopped
Green beans - heaping handful
Red bell pepper - one big one or two small

Lime - juice from one half during cooking, the other half for garnish
Cilantro - garnish

Rice

Method

Fry the beef in coconut oil until brown.
Turn down the heat and add garlic and chilis (and more oil if needed). Let them saute a little.
Add the mushrooms. Let them cook down a little.
Add coconut milk, a small dash of fish sauce, and the red curry paste. Stir well.
Add a little more water if necessary to thin, and add lemon grass.
Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to simmer and let this stew for a while so the flavors blend.

At Time(to eat) - Time(to cook rice), start the rice. In a separate pot, of course.

To the stew, add thai basil, green beans, bell pepper, and juice from half of a lime. Cook until veggies are desired tenderness (10-20 mins, depending on whether you like crisp or mushy).

Serve with stew spooned over rice. Garnish with cilantro and juice from the other lime half.

Substitutions

• Chicken for beef
• Broccoli, carrots, zucchini for the veggies
• Soy sauce or tamari for the fish sauce (if you skip the fish sauce, consider adding shrimp)
• Reduced fat coconut milk for regular coconut milk
• Olive oil for the coconut oil (but you should get some coconut oil to have at home! Trust me, you won't regret it)

Notes

• Note that there's no separate listing for salt -- there's a ton of it already from the fish sauce! If you want to add more salt, go for it, but definitely wait until all the other ingredients are added first and then taste it, to avoid over salting.
• Thai red curry paste should be easily found at any sufficiently large or international grocery store. Something like this product.
• If you buy the right kind, you can one with get simple, natural ingredients.
• In spite of the name, there is no curry in it.