Forage

A playground for culinary experiments.

Thai Red Curry with Beef

Food • • Audrey Chong

Thai Red Curry with Beef

The flavour without the grind

Making your own authentic Thai curry at home doesn’t have to be a daunting affair. With so many ready-to-use paste brands, you can simply use it as a base and build up layers of flavours with other ingredients. This little “cheat”s eliminates the need to make your paste from scratch! To make the beef easier to slice, you can put it in the freezer for 15 minutes prior to cutting.

Ingredients

  • 1 pack of Thai Red Curry Paste (from any Asian grocer)
  • 3 shallots or 1 red onion
  • 1 garlic clove
  • 3 lemongrass stalks
  • 3 bird’s eye chilli, reduce for less heat
  • 200ml coconut milk
  • 100ml water
  • 300g beef fillet, sliced super thinly (3-5mm)
  • 3 baby potatoes, skinned and halved
  • 1 small eggplant, skinned and cubed
  • 1 tsp fish sauce
  • 2 tsp palm sugar
  • 2 tbsp vegetable oil
  • Handful of Thai basil leaves or curry leaves

Instructions

  1. Roughly dice the shallots and garlic, and pound to a paste in a mortar.
  2. Mix beef with onion-garlic paste, fish sauce and Thai Red Curry paste in a mixing bowl and marinate for at least an hour in the refrigerator, or overnight for a more tender and flavourful beef.
  3. When you’re ready to cook, start by lightly bruising the lemongrass stalks with a pestle or the back of a knife to release the fragrant essential oils.
  4. Heat the vegetable oil in a heavy-bottom pot on medium high heat, throw in the lemongrass and fry it for a minute or two.
  5. Add the the marinated beef to stir-fry for 5 mins.
  6. Add water and palm sugar to the pot and stir gently, making sure paste at the bottom of the pan gets incorporated with the water. Bring to a boil.
  7. Add potatoes and eggplant, cook until tender, for about 30 minutes.
  8. Lower the heat before adding in the coconut milk. Simmer for another 15 mins.
  9. Add Thai basil leaves or curry leaves and cook for another 5 mins before turning off the heat.

Serve the red curry with beef over fragrant Thai Jasmine rice and enjoy! This recipe also works great with lamb or duck, so feel free to experiment with other red meat.

← Back ↑ Top