Hurry Curry

For this summer, most everything that we are eating in my house are locally grown veggies and meats. Last week I went to the Whites Creek Farmer's Market for my veggies, honey, cheese, and the Nashville Farmer's Market for my meats and fruit. I got home with all this great stuff and decided to make a yellow coconut curry stew. I have decided that my flavorings for food can be international because there are so many great flavors in the world. I just don't want to be stuck with just onions, garlic, thyme, oregano, sage and basil. So how did I make this dish? Well, it includes a can of coconut milk, and a can of pre-made Thai yellow curry paste. I have made my own curry paste before from base ingredients, but boy, what work that is. It is ultimately worth it in fresh flavor that would WOW your friends, but... Remember, I am a lazy cook, and canned curry paste and dinner on the table in under 1 hour is a delight for me.

All my ingredients are locally grown except for the sauce. I browned two different kinds of white potatoes in a little bit of local bacon drippings that I have been keeping. Yummy smoky goodness!

I cut up a couple small onions, minced a few cloves of spring garlic, and dumped them into the pan with the potatoes to sweat.

I dumped in on top of the potatoes and onions, zucchini, yellow squash, carrots, and chard and beet stems to give a crunch like a celery stock would. I wanted this veggies to be crisp, so I did not let them cook in the pan too long before I added the curry sauce stuff.

I added slices of chicken, poured on the coconut milk, curry paste and a few shakes of fish sauce (aka liquid salt). Curry in the Thai theme never seems right without a shake of fish sauce. For vegans, soy sauce will suffice, but Thai themed curry is sooo much better with fish sauce. The fish sauce is what makes the Thai food characteristic, as toasted sesame oil makes the Chinese food characteristic. This was a delicious dish (not to be confused with SNL's delicious dish). I may have to stop into my local Asian Market to get more coconut milk!

technorati tagged with:
Curry