THAI INSPIRED VEGAN PEANUT CURRY
Thai food is famous all over the world. This unique cuisine is a blend of centuries-old Eastern and Western influences. The key component of every dish is harmony. The flavours and the ingredients need to be harmoniously combined for a Thai dish to be authentic. Today I would like to introduce you one of my Thai favourite food that is called Vegan peanut cury. This Thai inspired vegan peanut curry is creamy, rich, packed full of flavour and absolutely delicious.
Firstly, i highly recommend you some information about Thai cuisine as below.
What is Thai Cuisine?
Since the explosion in tourism to Thailand in the 1980’s Thai food has established a foothold as one of the world’s leading schools of the culinary arts. It is one of the 5 most popular food types globally, the others being Indian, Chinese, French, and Italian. When you visit Thailand, although it is possible to enjoy western food, why bother? You are in the home of one of the world’s great cooking schools, so sit back and enjoy.
History and Origins
Thai food originated with the people who emigrated from the southern Chinese provinces into modern day Thailand many centuries ago. Historically there were many Szechwan influences in Thai cuisine, although over the centuries many other influences have affected Thai food. In a more distant past, Buddhist monk brought an Indian touch, and southern Muslim states influenced the cooking in the south of Thailand. Much later, Thai food was influenced by European cuisine after contact with Portuguese missionaries and Dutch traders. During these times there were even some influences from the Japanese. Today Thai food is its own, with a special unique blend of the 5 tastes: sweet, sour, bitter, salty, and spicy.
What is special about Thai food?
Thai food often pairs hot spices with sweet, light citrus flavors like lime and mango. The signature peanut sauce is somewhere between sweet and savory and adds depth to any dish. The layered flavors of Thai food make each dish feel completely unique and is what sets it apart from dishes in other Asian cuisines.
What gives Thai food its flavor? There are some key ingredients that give Thai food it’s distinctive aroma, depth and layers of flavour. Lemongrass, galangal, lime (rind and leaves), coriander leaves, sweet Thai basil leaves and garlic are used in one way or another is all Thai dishes.
How are Thai dishes classified?
Thai food is generally classified into 4 types; rice dishes which vary from region to region, with the north and north-eastern regions preferring the sticky variety of rice and central Thailand preferring the more fragrant variety. Then comes side dishes, this is quite a big grouping since it includes curries, soups, stir fry’s, salads, dips, and accompanying dishes known as “naem”. Desserts are the third category in Thai foods, they are usually made of rice flour, sugar, and coconut. Although sweet potato, taro, and water chestnut are added to some desserts. Finally comes plate meals, these will have a mix of a meat, vegetables and fried noodles or Thai fried rice.
Thai Curries
Thai curries are identified by their color. There are four main colors: green, red, yellow, and orange. Counter-intuitively, the hottest of them is the green curry followed by the red, the yellow which is the Thai version of an Indian curry, and the mildest is the simple orange curry. In addition to the basic color curries, there are two other curries that ae immensely popular: Panang and Massaman. They originate in the south of Thailand, with Malay and even Persian influences. They have a much thicker sauce than traditional Thai curries.
If you are a vegetarian, i am pretty sure that you like Thai inspired vegan peanut that I highly recommend to you below. It is super easy to make, and you could probably have it on the table in less time than it would take you to order takeout.
Ingredients
Marinated Tofu
- 500 g tofu extra firm or firm
- 2 tablespoon soy sauce
- ½ teaspoon cinnamon
- ½ teaspoon turmeric
- 1 teaspoon cumin
- 1 teaspoon coriander powder
- 1 teaspoon sweet paprika
- 1 teaspoon sugar
Thai Peanut Curry
- 2 garlic cloves finely chopped
- 1 small onion finely chopped
- 2 red chillies chopped
- 1 thumb-piece ginger grated or finely chopped
- 1 small carrot finely chopped
- 500 ml vegetable stock
- 80 g peanuts or peanut butter
- 1 teaspoon sugar
- 1 tablespoon soy sauce
- 400 ml coconut milk
- Chopped vegetables of your choice
Instructions
- Marinate the tofu. Cut the tofu block into cubes and prepare the marinade. Mix in a small bowl soy sauce, cinnamon, turmeric, cumin, coriander powder and sugar. Add the marinade onto the tofu, mix with your hands or a spoon and leave marinating while you prepare the rest of the ingredients.
- Heat some oil in a pan and add the garlic, onion, red chillies, ginger and carrot. Stir fry for a couple of minutes until the onion has softened and all the ingredients are cooked and transfer into a big blender jug.
- Add the vegetable stock, crushed peanuts or peanut butter, sugar and soy sauce. Blend all the ingredients using a hand blender until you have a smooth sauce.
- Using the same pan or pot used before, add some more oil if needed, heat the oil and add the tofu and chopped vegetables of your choice.
- Cook for a couple of minutes until the vegetables start to golden. Pour the peanut sauce and coconut milk. Bring to simmer and leave simmering for about 15 minutes. Adjust with salt to taste and your curry will be ready to enjoy.
Some tips for you when making this vegan peanut curry:
- Make the curry paste from scratch.
- Use a good amount of garlic and ginger, both are essential ingredients in Asian cooking.
- Choose the right ingredients.
- Use good quality coconut milk.
- Cook your curries in a non-stick pot or pan.
Frequently answered questions
- How do you serve this Thai peanut curry?
Serve the peanut coconut curry over jasmine rice, brown rice, or quinoa. It goes great with some splashes of lime and with a generous amount of crushed peanuts on top. You can also garnish it with some fresh coriander if you like.
- How do Thai Curries differ from other south Asian curries?
Generally, since Thai cuisine uses a lot of coconut milk, Thai curries are much more liquid than those of India for example. Furthermore, with a tradition of mixing ingredients Thai curries use a lot of vegetables, even in meat dishes, so unlike other south Asian curries where the meat curry is separate to the vegetable dishes, in Thailand the meat curry will also contain a good amount of vegetables. The final difference in Thai curries is how spices are used; most Thai cuisine uses spices in a paste form. This use of paste reduces cooking times in comparison to Indian curries – since the spices are precooked. It also offers a more enhanced flavor since the spices have had a time to marinate and mature together.
- What does peanut curry taste like?
Panang curry has a sweet, yet salty, thick nutty flavor, spruced with the taste of roasted ground peanuts. All this goodness is a result of a variety of ingredients like coriander, shallot, garlic, shrimp paste, white pepper and salt.
- And finally, we highly recommend you to share this recipe with your kids and encourage them to try some recipes from other countries and investigate their cooking so that it is another way to learn a lot of things from other cultures, cultures which sometimes they are near us.I hope you will have happy cooking by making THAI INSPIRED VEGAN PEANUT CURRY with your family.
