Week 23 of the Cookbook Challenge – a bit late as I’ve been on holidays so this week have had a week of Cookbook Challenge recipes to cook!
For this challenge the theme is Leaf – one of my new favourite leaves is Kaffir Lime leaves. I usually pick a few off my lime tree, throw them in a cup with some honey and make a quick tea – very refreshing and great if you have a cold.
Kaffir leaves are also used a lot in Thai cooking, so I wanted to do a Thai dish – Green Beef Curry with Thai Eggplant from my curry cookbook
Ingredients:
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
3 tablespoons green curry paste
2 1/2 cups coconut milk
450g beef sirloin
4 kaffir lime leaves, torn
1 tablespoon Thai fish sauce
1 teaspoon soft light brown sugar
150g Thai eggplants or small eggplants, sliced
2 fresh green chillies and a small handful of Thai basil to garnish
Plain boiled rice or noodles, to serve
Heat the oil in a wok or large pan. Add the green curry paste and fry gently until the paste begins to release its fragrant aromas.
Stir in half the coconut milk, a little at a time. Cook over a medium heat for about 5-6 minutes, until the oil begins to seperate and an oily sheen appears on the surface.
Cut the beef into long thin slices and add to the pan with the kaffir lime leaves, fish sauce, sugar and eggplant. Cook for 2-3 minutes, then stir in the remaining coconut milk.
Bring back to a simmer and cook until the meat and eggplant are tender. Finely shred the green chillies and use to garnish the curry, along with the Thai basil leaves.
This curry was pretty easy to make, although it looks more like a brown curry than a green curry! I made the green curry paste from scratch which took the longest but you can take a shortcut by buying curry paste which would make the process even quicker. I would definetly make this again.
