Tag Archives: vegan green curry paste

Shiitake Mushroom & Tofu Fritters With Sweet and Spicy Sauce

04 Saturday Apr 2020

Posted by in Main Courses, Sauces, Vegan

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The tofu and bean sprout fritters recipe that I posted previously was very good and the resulting cakes very subtle and delicately flavoured. Today I wanted to make some with more punch and depth of flavour, so I fried some finely chopped shiitake mushrooms and fried them with the onion and garlic. Then, as I already had it sitting in the fridge, for the spices I used a tablespoon of the green curry paste that I made for the vegetable curry. And finally to allow for the extra moisture of the mushrooms I added extra egg and rice flour. The cakes did hold together in the pan a lot better than the previous ones with bean sprouts.
I will write the whole recipe for the fritters below, followed by the recipe for the sweet spicy sauce which was a bit of a last minute throw together, but worked really well as often is the case.

SHIITAKE MUSHROOM FRITTERS

Makes 2 portions

200 grams plain tofu

1 spring onion – finely chopped

1 clove garlic- finely chopped

100 grams shiitake mushrooms – finely chopped

peanut or other light vegetable oil

1 tablespoon vegan green curry paste – see previous post for recipe

4 tablespoons – 60 ml rice flour

1 egg – lightly beaten

Fry the onions and garlic in a couple of tablespoons of oil until translucent.

Add the mushrooms and continue frying slowly for another 5 minutes.

Meanwhile break the tofu into a bowl and then mash it with a fork. Add the curry paste and mash more to mix thoroughly.

Add the mushroom and onion and again mix thoroughly.

Add the rice flour and mix, then finally the egg and mix again.

Form into six cakes squeezing the mix together with your hands so it holdS it’s shape.

Fry gently in oil until nicely light brown, about five minutes, then turn over carefully and cook the other side.

SWEET AND SPICY SAUCE

200 ml coconut milk

50 ml chilli jam – you can find the recipe on this site

juice of 1 small lime

1 tablespoon cashew cream

Heat all the ingredients in a small pan stirring them together. If the sauce seems a bit thin, coconut milk varies so much in density, add more cashew cream to thicken.

I have been experimenting with cashew cream, and in general I’m not so excited by it. It was great for thickening this sauce, but as a cream I find it works better for sweet things than savoury. I think in the next blog I will do a comparison of various vegan creamy sauces with recipes of course so you can try making whichever ones appeal.


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Vegetable Thai Green Curry

31 Tuesday Mar 2020

Posted by in Main Courses, Starters, Vegan

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T and I treated ourselves to a bit of a Thai feast to commemorate our two weeks of lockdown. We are getting into the groove now – made much easier by the emergence of the sun!

We had Smoked Tofu with Crispy Ginger – you can find the recipe on this blog – Vegetable Thai Green Curry, rice noodles with sesame oil and a little pickle of finely sliced radishes and spring onions in sweetened rice vinegar.

For this curry you can use a ready made green curry paste, but they do contain shrimp paste, so if you are being strict with your vegetarianism, you will have to make your own. It is quite difficult to get all the ingredients outside of Asia, so I’ve given options where necessary.

It is almost impossible to make a small amount of curry paste, so this amount will make 150 ml, about enough for 10 to 16 servings depending on how spicy the chillis are and how picante you like your curry to be. I recommend that you divide the paste up into tablespoon size portions and freeze what you are not using straight away.
Once you have this paste handy, you will find all sorts of other uses for it, In my meat eating days I would use it for a marinade for grilled chicken. My current favourite is Indian spicy mashed potatoes, but more of that another day.

Green curry paste

45 grams fresh green chillis

30 grams lemon grass

15 grams fresh galangal/ginger

25 grams garlic

1/2 teaspoon ground coriander

1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper

1/4 teaspoon ground cumin

grated rind and juice of 1/2 kaffir lime / 1 whole small lime

1/2 teaspoon salt

10 grams shrimp paste – optional

Cut the lemongrass, chillis, including seeds, and garlic into smallish pieces. Put these into a small food processor with the rest of the ingredients and whizz to a paste. Open the processor and scrape the pulp down into the bowl two or three times to ensure an even paste.

Vegetable Green Thai Curry

For 2 portions

300 ml coconut milk

1 – 1 1/2 tablespoons green curry paste

1/4 red pepper – cut into 1/2 x 3 cm strips

1/4 kohl rabi – cut as above

4 flat green beans – cut díagonally into small pieces

broccoli florets

small bunch mizuna/pack choi

juice of 1/2 a lime

As usual I’ve given you a list of the vegetables I used on this occasion, but these can be varied depending on what you have. In the vegetable garden I have a great oriental leaves mix, which contains Mizuna, Pak Choi, Red Kale and Mustard Greens amongst others, so that’s what I have used here. Also the very last of the kohl rabi, I probably won’t see another one of them until next winter.

Heat the coconut milk in a small wok.

Add the curry paste and stir well to mix in.

Add all the vegetables except the leaves and bring to a simmer. Turn the heat down, cover and cook for about 10 minutes until the vegetables are just cooked.

Add the leaves and lime juice. Stir round for a minute or two to wilt the leaves.

Serve and enjoy!