Red Thai Curry (My Jugaad method)

For me cooking is both an art and a necessity. There are days I would labour over a dish and days when I would employ the great Indian jugaad (hack). Today I made a Thai red curry but cheated big time. The long and short of it is that it worked and no one was any wiser

I took a packet of ready Thai curry and improvised by adding fresh coconut, prawns and white pumpkin. Even though one may not use pumpkin I just had this about and thought of using it and it works well.

Ingredients                                                                                                                                                             

Prawns – 200 grams

Pumpkin – 250 grams

Thai Red Curry Paste – one packet, any one will do

Fresh coconut – ¼ grated and ground with the red curry paste

Coconut powder – a handful

Tobasco/chilli flakes for extra heat – about ten drops/half a tea spoon

Kaffir lime leaves – four

Fish sauce – one tea spoon

Method

Clean and de-vein the prawns and use the heads and shells to make a stock. To do that just wash the heads and shells and boil them in water for ten minutes.  Strain and set aside.

Grind the ready packet of Thai red chilli paste with fresh coconut. Once done, heat oil in a pot and add this ground mixture and fry it for about a minute. Now add about two cups of the stock and bring this to a boil. Drop the heat and add the tobasco. If you don’t have tobasco used chilli flakes which you should grind with the coconut and the red chilli paste.

Cook the pumpkin for about two minutes and add the prawns, kaffir lime leaves and the coconut powder which you have dissolved in water. Always dissolve coconut powder in cold water and then add it to the curry. Turn off the gas and let the prawns cook in the heat of the curry for the next ten minutes. Do not overcook prawns or they get rubbery.

NOTES

1. If you don’t have kaffir lime leaves or the fish sauce, no sweat, the dish tastes great any way

2. While this dish does not need you to authentically grind all your spices and needs you to open a ready packet of Thai red curry paste, it still requires you to labour a bit with other methods.

3. If you don’t have prawns use chicken

4. If you have lemon grass then use the bulb section. Cut them into fine juliennes and add them at the time of the frying the paste

5. I purchase kaffir lime leaves and freeze them, this way you can use them whenever you want.