I had the holiday off today but, unfortunately, Robert did not. He had to brave the freezing temperatures and ice on his own this morning, poor thing. Usually, when I have the apartment to myself for the day, I like to make something extra special for dinner. The kind of meal that creates a huge mess and takes way more time to make than I would be willing to spend on a weeknight.

Today, I decided to make a second recipe from Cracking the Coconut: Keang Pet Daeng (Spicy Red Curry Paste.) For this recipe, you need a bunch of ingredients including, among other things, red chilies, shrimp paste, galangal, lemongrass and coriander seeds. According to the recipe, you are supposed to pound the ingredients one at a time in a large mortar and pestle. I only have a small mortar and pestle so I pounded some of the softer ingredients, such as garlic and shallots, in that and then used my mini food processor for the rest. I figured there was no way that I was going to be able to puree dried red chilies or lemongrass using my mortar and pestle. I don’t have that much strength or stamina. So, my curry may not have had the “complex” flavor of a paste that has been pounded forever but I’m OK with that.

Once the paste was done, the rest of the meal was pretty simple. I simmered baby eggplants, kabocha squash, fresh bamboo shoots and tofu in the curry paste and coconut milk until done. Then I added some kaffir lime leaves and a ton of thai basil at the end. I served it over steamed jasmine rice with stir-fried greens on the side. It was pretty darn good and rivals Robert’s green chili stew from last night as the spiciest dish of the month. However, I’m not sure I will make it again. It was a lot of work and, considering that there are good commercial chili pastes out there and that I live within arm’s reach of about 10 different Thai restaurants, it’s probably not really worth my time. It was a fun experiment, though.

Side note: The tofu that I used in this recipe was from Thanh Son Tofu right down the street from me on 12th! I picked it up at Uwajimaya. It was really good. Nice and firm and it didn’t have a trace of that sour flavor that some commercial tofu has. It pays to buy locally!