Curry in a Slurry

    

From a 1999 issue of Gourmet that I printed out from Epicurious in 2003, this recipe for Vegetable Green Curry is one of my first forays into curry.  Given my annotations, I think I liked it, with a few alterations.  Looking to learn from my curry, I made it straight, verbatim, sort of, ignoring my notes in the margins, as if I never made curry before.  Vegetables are a colorful combination of onion, red pepper, sweet potatoes and snow peas, bound in a silky blanket of coconut milk.  The cheat, or, ahem, simplifier, is Thai green curry paste, saving the hassle of making one’s own.   I just can’t help but feel that I’m using the Thai version of Hamburger Helper.  All together it is a good starter curry that marries spicy and sweet in a pleasing visual palette.  Leftovers mixed with rice,make a nice stuffed pepper, cute and compact packages, baked at 350 for 25 minutes with a sprinkling of shredded coconut.

I have since made many more curries, including making my own curry paste out of cilantro, jalapeno, onion, ginger, etc.  A satisfying experience that is a good way of using all of the above in excess, it is fresh and bright beyond the jar.  Our cooking class in Bali revealed the true secret to curry – copious amounts of coconut oil.  Maybe some things are better left unknown.