Thai Yellow Curry

 

Its a funny story on when I tasted my first ever Thai khana. Well, it was not when I was travelling in Bangkok, though I could’ve had the authentic best there. The fear of everything being mixed with oyster sauce scared the vegetarian-me so much , that all the days that we were in Thailand, we went looking for an Indian restaurant, and ate Alu Paratha – all 3 times a day, for almost a week. Yes, shame on us.

And after I came back, I bumped into blog posts stating how awesome Thai food is and how tasty the street food there is. Well, that was when I felt a real heartburn ! :) A very valuable lesson learnt from the foolishness displayed in the Land of Smiles was that, no matter how it is, we have decided to try the local cuisine. Or atleast not search maniacally for Indian restaurants.

So when we saw that Hydie had its first own Thai restaurant, Isda Thai, we dined there almost immediately. The ambience was awesome, so was the food. What I loved the best is that they had veggie options for every dish on the menu. It felt like paradise. Thats where I ate my first ever red, yellow and green curries. And fell in love with the spices used in them. Since then, it had been a dream to make Thai food!

When I saw this recipe by Arundati, I tried it right away. Yellow Curry with white rice – Made a pretty picture on the plate.

Followed most of the steps in the recipe to the T, but made some minor changes to it, because of lack of ingredients, and reluctance to use some :)

1. I did not use the oyster mushroom sauce. I know its vegetarian, but blame it on the word ‘oyster’!
2. Didn’t find baby bok chok anywhere, and so omitted that. Could’ve substituted that with spinach as advised by Arundati and Nandita, but didnt have that too handy.
3. Had just cauliflowers, red & yellow peppers and one small zucchini.

As I was making the yellow paste ready, I could not help notice the uncanny resemblances between a Mangalorean dish called ''Kodyelu’ and this paste. They have the same basic ingredients(cumin, coconut milk and coriander) , and Yellow curry paste has a few more exotic ones.

What I made might not be an exact Thai Yellow curry, but we loved the spice in this, and the taste overall. And it totally appealed to the husband who loves anything that can be eaten with white rice!