When I visited Chiang Mai a few years ago, I enrolled in a Thai cooking class. The aim was to learn to make traditional Thai food recipes. Some vegetarians (like me) find it difficult to enjoy Thai food owing to the generous use of fish sauce / shrimp paste. Because I grew up eating a vegetarian diet (occasionally consuming milk products / eggs), I was keen to learn to make Thai food without fish sauce, shrimp paste or other meat products. And this cooking class helped me learn just that. Reminiscing that Thai Cookery class, below I make this Thai Vegetable Green Curry from scratch. The curry is warming ideal for the winter season in Australia right now. It is pack full of flavour and is vegan and gluten-free (if that’s your thing).
Key Ingredients in Vegetable Thai Green Curry
Thai cooking should be fun and everyone should enjoy this delicious food. So use these key ingredients to really lift your Vegetable Thai curry game and cook like a pro.
Jump to RecipeSeasoning Thai Green Curry
- Mushroom Sauce – To avoid fish sauce and Oyster sauce in a vegetarian version of the green curry, I use Mushroom sauce. This is made from soy sauce with mushroom extract to bring out the flavour of the food. If you are unable to find mushroom sauce, you can dry to make your own. To make your own soak dried mushrooms in warm water for 15 min, then blitz in a blender and add to a bowl of soy sauce.
- Palm Sugar – Normally used in desserts and curries to give a fuller flavour than commercial sugars. It normally comes in blocks or pieces. Palm sugar is similar to jaggery and one may use brown or demerara sugar as a substitute.
Spices in Thai Curry
- Cumin Seeds – Look very similar to caraway seeds (but not the same in flavour). These will be available in any Indian, Asian or Middle Eastern grocery stores.
- Coriander Seeds – These are the tiny round seeds very fragrant and pleasant to taste. Again these will be available in any Indian, Asian or Middle Eastern grocery stores.
- White Peppercorns – These are the dried pepper berries with their skin off, hence the name white. If you don’t have white peppercorns just skip them as we do not want to use the black peppercorns. They will just darken your green curry paste while grinding it.
Thai Herbs and Vegetables
- Galangal – Also known as Thai ginger, we just use the stem portion of the galangal. The stem is what is normally sold as well. It should be available in Asian grocery stores that sell Asian vegetables and fruits.
- Thai Bird’s Eye Chilli – This is the smallest and the hottest Thai chilli. It is mostly used in all Thai soups, curries and salads.
- Kaffir Lime – We use the peel of the kaffir lime in curry pastes. Kaffir Lime is a stronger version of a lime. In case it is unavailable, use a green lime.
- Kaffir Lime Leaves – The leaves are so fragrant and used in Tom Yam soups, Tom Kha soup and all kinds of Thai curries.
- Lemongrass – The stem of the lemongrass is what is bashed up and used as a key herb in Thai soups or curries. It has a citrus flavour. The stalk itself is too hard to eat as is, hence needs to be bashed up in the curry paste.
- Sweet Thai Basil – Use the smooth and hairless Thai basil in all your green curries. This has a strong aniseed or liquorice smell.
- Oyster Mushrooms – These white mushrooms with a firm flesh are mostly used in soups or stir fry recipes in Thai cooking.
- Green Thai Eggplant – The round white or green eggplants are small the size of a ball. They are an essential ingredient in Thai curries.
Please let me know in the comments if you have any questions or if you have any easy dinner recipes to share. If you like this recipe, please do leave a rating below. Don’t forget to tag #urbanfoodlover and follow along on Instagram for lots of foodie inspiration 🙂
Thai Vegetable Green Curry Recipe
Ingredients
For the Green Curry Paste
- 8 large green fresh chillies
- 3 small bird eye chillies
- 2 tbsp chopped shallot
- 1 tbsp garlic
- 1 tsp chopped galangal
- 1 tbsp chopped lemongrass
- 1 tsp chopped coriander stems
- 1/2 tsp chopped kaffir lime skin
- 1 tsp roasted coriander seeds
- 1 tsp roasted cumin seeds
- 5 white peppercorns See notes
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 tsp mushroom sauce
For the Green Curry
- 1 tbsp green curry paste, heaped
- 4 green eggplants quartered
- 100 grams oyster mushrooms
- 100 grams cauliflower florets
- 1 medium carrot diced
- 1/4 cup sweet Thai basil leaves
- 1 tbsp Kaffir lime leaves
- 400 ml coconut milk
- 1 tbsp Tamari (low sodium) soy sauce
- 2 tsp palm sugar
- 2 tbsp Cold pressed neutral peanut oil
- 1 tsp sliced red chilli to garnish
Instructions
For the Green Curry Paste
- In a mortar and pestle or a high speed blender, grind the cumin seeds, coriander seeds and pepper corns together. Then add in the chillies and salt and continue pounding until a coarse mixture is formed.
- After the coarse mixture is formed, then add in the remaining ingredients until a smooth curry paste is formed
- Store this paste in an air tight container for upto a week in the refrigerator and use in curries and stir fries as you like.
For the Green Curry
- In a wok or deep skillet, heat up the peanut oil over low heat. Then add int he green curry paste, keep stirring until fragrant and then add in about 1/4 cup of coconut milk. Keep stirring until the green oil surfaces on top.
- Next add in the chopped eggplants, carrot, cauliflower florets , mushrooms and remaining coconut milk. Continue cooking until they turn soft but not mushy.
- Once the veggies are cooked, season with tamari and palm sugar until fully dissolved. Then stir in the sweet basil leaves and kafir lime leaves (stem removed).
- Stir couple of minutes on low heat, then remove and garnish with red chilli. Serve over steam rice.
Notes
If you like this recipe, save it over in Pinterest when you want to make it later. Just hover over the above image and click on the “Pinterest” button to save!