Eggplant Curry with Peanuts

This is my comfort food.

At least ever since trekking around Thailand it has been. The capital and cultural melee that is Bangkok is filled with beauties and cons, faith and sewers, but the best thing about the 10 million plus “city of angels” is the food. It’s a veritable symphony of street stall sumptuousness. Forget the majority of the restaurants (unless you know it’s where the locals go) which generally focus on “safe” versions of the traditional cuisine made palatable for a westernized clientele and go street. The first thing you do after getting into town is to find the local street market. When passing through the dazzling and mind-bogglingly topography of the various southeast Asian cities this is often the best way to get a sense of the country, the people, the food, everything important.

Patpong’s a great place to start. The night market there is unrivaled for variety: Hundreds of dishes (all served with Nam Prik the ubiquitous spicy chili paste for dipping) like Pad Thai, Som Tam Thai (Papaya Salad with peanuts), Tom Yam Talae (spicy seafood noodle soup), Mang Dah (fried water bugs), Durian (stinky and delicious), but especially the curries, including Massaman (an amazing traditional Thai Muslim curry), Gaeng Phet (scorchingly hot red curry), and today’s special- Gaeng Khiew-Waan, served with an Indonesian twist: peanuts.

This recipe is pretty basic Thai except for a few twists which are necessitated by living in a country (Japan) which only recently found out there existed other spicy(er) food than just wasabi. The baby eggplant is key and freshness is of utmost importance. Cilantro is pretty hard to procure anywhere outside of Tokyo but you can find it under the names of シャンツァイ, 香菜 (こうさい), or simply コリアンダー. The other impossibility is Thai Basil which has a sweetness unlike most other types, so just substitute your local sweet basil. I use soy milk instead of coconut milk for a healthier mix (the additive-free Japanese soy milk is the best I’ve ever had as well as not being canned), but this will definitely be the biggest change in flavor to your curry, so be forewarned.

Homemade Green Curry Paste - Good Anytime

What you need:

*2 cups Brown Rice
*6 Baby Eggplant
*1 Red Onion
*8-10 Baby Corns
*Handful of Crushed Peanuts
*Fresh Cilantro
*1/2 cup Soy (or Coconut) Milk
*1/3rd cup Curry Paste
*Oil for the wok (Sesame/grapeseed mix)

(Curry Paste)

*8 Green Chilis (any are OK)
*1 Jalapeño
*1 small Red Onion or 2 shallots
*Handful of fresh Cilantro, including shoots and stems
*A bunch of fresh Sweet Basil
*Handful of Unsalted Peanuts
*5-10 cloves of roasted Garlic
*2 thick thumb-sized pieces of fresh Ginger (grate)
*1 thick piece of fresh Turmeric (grate)
*1 thick piece of Galangal (fresh if you can get it, otherwise use the powder) (grate)
*1 Lime, zest and juice
*8 Kaffir Lime leaves
*2 stalks fresh Lemongrass (2 tbsp. dried)
*2 tbsp. Fish Sauce
*½ cup Soy Milk
*1 tsp. Cumin
*Fresh ground Pepper

Mix ingredients together in the blender and set aside.

Start the rice first. Next, warm up the oil in the wok. Remember, lift & swirl. Lift & swirl…Fry up your chunked up eggplant and onions for a good three to five minutes, stirring regularly. Add the soymilk and turn the burner down to low. Let simmer for five minutes or so. Meanwhile heat your curry paste in a separate saute pan with a bit of oil until the oil melds into the paste. Add your paste to the vegetables, mix in while stirring for about three minutes or until you can see the paste joining the soy milk. Take off the burner, plate carefully before topping with crushed peanuts and finishing off with fresh cilantro. Pour yourself a beer. You deserve it.

This entry was posted on Saturday, October 17th, 2009 at 13:24. It is filed under Fusion and tagged with Birds Eye Chili, Cilantro, City of angels, Eggplant, Fusion, Gaeng Khiew-Waan, Green Curry, Nam Prik, Peanuts, Soy Milk, Thai Curry. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.