Vegan Green Curry Recipe
Every time we go to Thailand we make it our mission to eat as much Gaeng Kiew Wan Pak as we can (that’s vegetable green curry if you hadn’t already guessed). It’s a habit we’ve been developing for nearly 20 years of travel to the land of smiles but we can never quite get enough of it. Such is our addiction to this famous Thai dish. Inevitably we had to learn to make it so we could eat it at home too and so our Vegan Green Curry Recipe was born.
A bit of background…
This recipe has been developed not only through our extensive research of green curry eating in Thailand but also by pinching ideas from a few excellent vegan cooking classes (especially those taken at Paresa Resort and Kata Rocks during the Phuket Vegetarian Festival). Credit where credit’s due. You should aim for a rich soupy curry with a good level of spice, balanced with sweetness and saltiness. So there you go.
Essential tips:
Before we go on to the details of our Vegan Green Curry Recipe, there are 3 things to take note of:
- You can’t really go that wrong making a Vegan Green Curry – just add things to taste and adjust the amounts of tofu and vegetables. You can also use whatever vegetables you like. The ingredients list below should help you as a guide.
- You can make your own green curry paste or buy one from a shop (just make sure that if you are doing this you select one without shrimp paste). If you are buying a ready made paste, check the amount of salt or sugar already in the paste (if any) and then put less soy sauce and palm sugar in accordingly.
- We’re using the term eggplant to refer to aubergines because that’s what they’re called in Asia and its become a funny habit.
Ingredients:
2 tbs green curry paste
3 kaffir lime leaves
1 cup coconut milk
1/2 tbs palm sugar
15 leaves of thai basil
2 tbs soy sauce
1 tbs oil for frying (we use coconut oil)
1 pack firm white tofu, cubed
4 shallots, quartered.
1 carrot, peeled and sliced
1 handful of broccoli florets
1 handful of mushrooms (any mild variety will do)
1 handful of cauliflower florets
1 handful of pea eggplant
1 handful of Thai eggplant, quartered
Sliced red chilli (not the bird eye ones).
Get cooking:
- Heat oil in a non-stick wok, fry curry paste for a few minutes.
- Add coconut milk and bring to the boil.
- Add the lime leaves, palm sugar and soy sauce.
- Add tofu, shallots, carrot, eggplant, broccoli, cauliflower, mushrooms and simmer for 5-10 minutes until vegetables are tender but still retain a bite.
- Adjust sweetness, saltiness and spiciness to taste.
- Stir in 10 Thai basil leaves and remove from the heat, garnish with the remaining basil leaves and a few slices of red chilli.
If you were wondering, this should be served with rice and dreams of losing yourself in the wonders of Thailand.
Looks delicious. Will definitely be giving it a try. Think I may take the short cut and but the paste from our well=stocked Asian Supermarket.