Massaman Curry

This curry is one of my favorites in Thailand. Typically, restaurants or stalls run by Muslim families would have this curry as an option. Though the curry part has a long list of ingredients, it really is simple and produces delicious results using things you probably already have in your kitchen if you eat the local food. Try putting everything in your pressure cooker to speed it up or add tenderness to any tough cuts of meat. Fresh lemongrass is becoming more available locally, but if you don’t find it, the pure dried lemongrass tea works just fine. Also, you may notice from my picture that I made the mistake of allowing the dried lemongrass to float freely in the curry. While it tasted great, I would not recommend this unless you want stab wounds in your mouth! It would be good to wrap it up in a small bit of cloth that you later remove from the curry. 

Massaman Curry

500g beef or chicken, sliced thinly

2 cups water + 1 stock cube

1 small onion, chopped

2 medium potatoes, cut into small chunks

Fresh coriander, optional

Curry Sauce:

1 thumb fresh ginger, appx. 1 inch by 2 inches

6 cloves garlic, minced

3 Tablespoons lemongrass, fresh or dried

1 dried red chili (more or less to taste)

¼ cup peanuts or cashews

1 teaspoon coriander powder

1 teaspoon cumin seed

½ teaspoon pepper

1 teaspoon turmeric powder

3 cardamom pods, opened

1 teaspoon tamarind paste or lemon juice

1 Tablespoon brown sugar

¾ teaspoon shrimp paste (sub: tom yum paste)

2 Tablespoons fish sauce

1 can coconut milk

Chop the ginger, garlic, nuts, and black seeds from the cardamom pods as finely as you can. A mortar and pestle does this really well. Heat 1 Tablespoon oil in a large saucepan and add all the curry sauce ingredients except the coconut milk. Fry in the oil about 1 minute until the curry paste smells really fragrant. Add the water and stock cube stirring until the curry paste has evenly spread out into the liquid. Add the meat, onions, potatoes, and coconut milk to the pot. Bring to a boil then lower the heat, and simmer covered for about 30 minutes. If you like the curry sauce thicker, then remove the lid after about 25 minutes and allow some of the liquid to evaporate. Check that the potatoes are fork tender. If not, continue cooking a few more minutes. Remove the lemongrass pouch, and serve over rice.

Chick Pea Curry

This is Liz and her son Will in 2010. Wish I had more photos with/of her!

One of the best parts of living overseas for our family was the tight-knit community of ex-pats we came to know. When we first moved overseas, I felt so lost. In all the typical ways, like language, culture and trying to find our way around. But the most surprising thing to me was that I no longer knew how to cook! I was a pretty decent cook when we lived in the States and even thought I cooked from scratch pretty well, but then I came to a place where even canned goods are hard to come by consistently. This is one of the ways that our community of friends came to my rescue. Lizzy was certainly one of the biggest influences, pointing me in all the right directions for ingredients, blogs that she often referenced and sharing recipes. Another close friend, Liz Watson, was incredibly practical and skilled in the kitchen and today's recipe was one of her go-to meals and now is one of our family favorites as well. I think of her every time I make it and get to share it as a meal, which often leads to me also passing on the recipe. Quite a cooking legacy Liz! I love how quickly this recipe comes together and I generally tend to have all these ingredients on hand, so it's a good recipe when I need a last minute dinner idea.

Chick Pea Curry

Two cans cooked chickpeas (I usually use dried and soak them then cook them)
1 can peeled tomatoes. (Fresh can be used also. I also occasionally add a can of tomato puree if I want a more soup-like curry)
2 onions
3 cloves garlic
1 tsp turmeric
1 tsp coriander powder
1 tsp cumin powder
1 tsp chilli powder (I do much less than this so my kids can eat it, but if you like a good, spicy curry, go for it!)
1 tsp salt
2-3 sliced green capsicum (bell pepper)
Fresh coriander (cilantro)

Fry spices and salt with onions and garlic in oil. Then add chickpeas and tomatoes and capsicums, until boiling. Add fresh coriander right at the end and mix in. Serve over rice.