This recipe was developed to pair with wine for the January #WinePW event pairing wines with Asian dishes.
The #WinePW (wine pairing weekend) crew will gather on Saturday, January 9th on Twitter to dive into the pairings we each came up with. You can join us! Just hop on to Twitter at 8 am (Pacific time) on Saturday morning and follow and use the hashtag #WinePW to join the conversation. Find all the details at our post An Affordable and Aromatic Gewürztraminer Paired with Thai Red Curry #winePW
Creating My Thai Red Curry recipe
I went through a dozen recipes and several videos compiling my recipe for Thai Red Curry. Once I created my recipe, I went shopping online and, well, pandemic and all, there were several things I was not able to find, like dried shitake mushrooms, kaffir lime leaves, lemongrass, Thai basil…I’ll let you know in the recipe where you could add these things, but we adapted our recipe to do without the lime leaves. I substituted dried lemongrass and different basil. I couldn’t get fresh broccoli so we used broccoli rabe. Our mushrooms? No dried shitake mushrooms, no dried mushrooms were available at all. I checked for fresh mushrooms and the only thing we could find were stuffed mushroom caps! LOL! So, we will empty them and find a use later for the filling.
Yes, I threw the kitchen sink at this dish, and you don’t have to! Choose a protein and skip the other vegetables or vice versa. I love vegetables but wanted to add the shrimp for Michael. I made this dish approachable in its flavors, using just one chili while cooking the shrimp. You can most definitely amp up the heat. I also used pre-made red curry paste. You can make your own or just add to the spices if you like.
This dish cooks in a dutch oven and we accompanied it with Jasmine rice.
This was a wonderful simple pairing. In the future, I would amp up the spices to make the pairing work even better. Of course, you can always do this the easy way and get Thai takeout!
Thai Red Curry with vegetables and shrimp
Ingredients
- Sesame oil
- ½ pound shrimp (shelled and deveined)
- 2-4 dried red peppers (to your taste)
- 1 shallot
- 2 carrots – peeled and sliced on the diagonal
- 1/2 sweet potato – cut into ¾ inch cubes
- ¼ head of cauliflower cut into 1-inch florets
- ½ cup of broccoli (or broccoli rabe, using florets and stems)
- 1 can of coconut milk
- 2 tbs red curry paste
- 1 tbs tomato paste
- 1 stalk of lemongrass (or 1 tsp ground dried lemongrass)
- 1 tbs fresh grated ginger
- 1 tbs fresh minced garlic
- ¼ cup of mushroom broth (from rehydrating your mushrooms)
- ¾ cup of sliced mushrooms (ideally dried shitake that have been rehydrated, but use what you can find!)
- 1 -5 oz can of bamboo shoots
- 1 tbs of fish sauce
- 1 tsp sugar
- 2 Kaffir lime leaves
- ½ red pepper sliced
- ½ yellow pepper sliced
- ½ cup fresh Thai basil
- 1 cup of spinach
- Optional 1 cup of broccoli rabe leaves
- Juice of ½ of a lime
For garnish
Green onions, cashews, lime slices, and hot sauce
Directions
With this recipe, it is always best to chop everything in advance.
- Dice the shallot, slice the carrots, broccoli (or broccoli rabe), cauliflower, sweet potato, green onions, and red and yellow pepper.
- Mince the garlic.
- Peel and grate the ginger on a microplane.
- Rehydrate (or unstuff LOL) your mushrooms. Put them into enough water to cover them, bring to a boil then simmer 5 minutes. Let them steep and cool. Remove the stems and slice. Reserve the rehydrating liquid.
- Drain the can of bamboo shoots and put them in a small pot with some water. Boil for 5 minutes. (this will reduce the bamboo smell).
- Heat 2 tablespoons of sesame oil in a dutch oven. Add as many whole chilis as you like (I just added one)and your shrimp. Cook 2-3 minutes until the shrimp are opaque. Put aside on a plate.
- Add a bit more oil, cook the shallot 2 minutes until soft, add the carrots, broccoli (or broccoli rabe), cauliflower, and sweet potato. Cook 3-4 minutes. Put aside on a plate.
- Put ½ of your coconut milk in the dutch oven, heat it until you start to see it separate at the edges.
- Add the red curry paste and continue to cook. This should fry up. If you want to boost your spices, this is the place to do that, adding more chili, ground coriander, or ground turmeric.
- Add the tomato paste, lemongrass, garlic, and ginger. Cook for 3 minutes until fragrant.
- When this begins to separate (you will see the orange oil on the edges), add the remaining coconut milk and the mushroom broth and bring to a boil.
- Add the fish sauce and sugar and if you have kaffir lime leaves tear those and add them here (this will add a citrus brightness to the dish).
- Add the mushrooms, bamboo shoots, shrimp, and vegetables simmer for 5 -10 minutes, to absorb the flavors and make the potato tender.
- Add the red and yellow pepper and cook for 1 minute. (if you have broccoli rabe leaves or even kale, add them hear also)
- Remove from the heat, add your basil and spinach, and the lime juice, and stir.
- Serve with jasmine rice and garnish with lime slices, Thai basil, cashew, green onions, and hot sauce.
Pairings from across the Globe
Thai Red Curry with a Gewürztraminer
We paired Thai Red Curry with a Gewürztraminer, from Monterey County.
The best of this variety come from Alsace. But there are 1,700 or so acres planted in California, with half of those being in Monterey, which is where our wine comes from.
Almost 9,000 miles away from Alsace, the native home of Gewürztraminer, you will find Thailand. It is strange and wonderful that places so far apart might find compatibility in food and wine pairings. I suppose it is like the contrasting colors on a color wheel. But pair indeed they do. The spicy notes of many Thai dishes are mellowed by the slight sweetness of the wine and the aromatics in the wine elevate the food. It’s not just me, who thinks this is a good pairing. Head to your favorite Thai restaurant, chances are you will find Riesling and Gewürztraminer in abundance on the wine list.
To read more about this wine, visit our post “An Affordable and Aromatic Gewürztraminer Paired with Red Thai Curry #winePW “
*We received this wine as a media sample. No other compensation was received, all opinions are our own.*
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Robin Renken is a wine writer and Certified Specialist of Wine. She and her husband Michael travel to wine regions interviewing vineyard owners and winemakers and learning the stories behind the glass.
When not traveling they indulge in cooking and pairing wines with food at home in Las Vegas.
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