I’m a big fan of a good Thai Green Curry. However when you buy one from a takeaway store it’s not very easy to know exactly what’s in it. A lot of the time they include too much sugar and also fish sauce which of course is not vegan or even vegetarian.
Yes you could just buy a ready made Thai green curry paste. However you just need to be sure to look out for fish sauce in the ingredients as well as the sugar content. I also prefer a homemade curry paste as it tastes better and you get the satisfaction of having made it all from scratch, plus it’s actually not as hard as you may think. All the ingredients just go in a blender together, whiz them up and you’ve got a curry paste ready to go.
If you have time I recommend making the paste a bit in advance and then putting it in the fridge until you’re ready to use it. This helps all the flavours to really increase and intensify and generally makes for a better curry. It can be made up to a day in advance, so you could even make it the night before. When I made this last I made the paste around 5 hours before I needed it.
I actually found a few of the paste ingredients hard to find. I’m guessing because of COVID as a lot of food in general seems to be in short supply. But depending where you live this could be a problem regardless. I couldn’t find fresh limes or even ginger. I substituted these for Countdown brand lime juice, and Countdown brand crushed ginger and it worked no problem. Shallots could be replaced with brown or red onion if you can’t get them. I find the best and most reliable place to get a lot of these ingredients, is an Asian supermarket. This particularly applies for the shallots, lemongrass and kaffir lime. Although I often find these at a regular supermarket too.
Fish sauce is a fairly common staple in Thai curry pastes due to the saltiness it provides. A super easy, cheap, cruelty free alternative is soy sauce. Just don’t get the reduced salt type. If you’re vegan or vegetarian next time you get Thai food maybe check if you’re curry includes fish sauce.
This curry has a lot of sauce with it which I love, you’ll want to serve it with rice to soak it all up. You could swap out white rice for brown or black for less carbs, or even better swap for cauliflower rice.
This is vegan, and can be made gluten free if you look for a gluten free soy sauce, such as Kikkoman Gluten Free Soy Sauce.
For more dinner ideas have a look at my other recipes here.
Ingredients
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Curry Paste
- Curry
Instructions
- First make the curry paste as below. If you have time, make this part up to a day in advance and put in the fridge until you’re ready to use it. This will allow all the flavours to intensify.Even just a couple of hours in advance will help. Curry Paste
- Peel and quarter the shallots and put into a food processor or blender. Peel garlic cloves and roughly chop the ginger and add to the food processor/blender.
- Trim the ends of the lemongrass, finely chop and add to the food processor/blender.
- Slice the chillies and add, up to you if you leave the seeds in or not (it will be hotter if you include the seeds).
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Roughly chop coriander and basil and add.
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Add all remaining curry paste ingredients to the food processor/blender and blend until relatively smooth. Set aside, or if not making the curry right away refrigerate until you need it.
Curry
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Cut the tofu into even sized squares. Set a frying pan on medium heat with a lug of oil and fry the tofu until it’s starting to brown. Remove from the pan and set aside.
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Cut the broccoli into florets, remove the stalk from the capsicum and deseed then slice lengthways about 1/2cm wide. Slice carrots into rounds about 1/2cm thick. Drain the bamboo and slice into matchsticks.
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Fry all of these except for the bamboo until cooked and starting to brown. Then add the bamboo and cook for a further 2mins. Note depending on the size of your pan you may need to cook these veges in batches.
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Remove from the heat and set aside with the tofu.
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Add a little more oil to the pan then add the prepared curry paste. Fry for 3-5mins until fragrant.
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Pour the coconut milk into the pan, stir into the curry paste, add the kaffir lime leaves and cook for 2mins.
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Add all the veges and tofu back to the pan with the curry sauce and cook for about 3mins until warmed through.
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Serve on top of rice. Or for a lower carb option use cauliflower rice.
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