Thai Yellow Curry with Salmon - the simple way

Cooking is hobby I really enjoy especially when I have a day off where there's plenty of time to experiment and cook from scratch. So when I had a bit of time off over Christmas I decided to have a flick through some new recipe books and get back to cooking. I was given the Honestly Healthy alkaline diet book by Natasha Corrett and Vicki Edgson as a gift for Christmas. It includes plenty of colourful and inspiring recipes that I'm dying to try. This curry recipe seemed like the perfect warm and comforting meal to cook my family. However it seems that many authentic recipes, like this one, include ingredients that you can only use that once and you end up purchasing a lot of spices and oils that sit in the cupboard for years with no use. So I've tweaked this recipe by using ingredients that can be used for countless meals and are easy to track down whilst keeping it's traditional taste. 

For the Curry Paste: 

1 large onion

1-2 small red chillies (depending on how hot you like it)

5 garlic cloves

1/2 handful of coriander

1 kaffir lime leaf (dried of fresh)

1 tbsp coriander seeds powder

1 1/2 tbsp mild chilli powder

1/2 tsp turmeric

2 tsp rice syrup or Mirin sauce

For the Curry:

 1 dried lemongrass stalk 

1 tbsp coconut oil or groundnut oil

5 heaped tsp curry paste

400ml coconut milk

60g red and yellow peppers (I used a packet of sweet mini peppers)

45g sugar snaps

50g asparagus

65g red and yellow cherry tomatoes, halved

150ml water

400g salmon, skinned and cut into chunks

For the paste, whizz up all the ingredients in a blender until smooth.

Next, start to make the curry by heating the oil in a large deep pan with the lemongrass over a low heat for 2 minutes to infuse the oil.

Add the curry paste and saute for 2 minutes. 

Add the coconut milk and let it melt down. Cut the peppers into strips and pop them in the pan and simmer for a further 5 minutes. 

Add the tomatoes and the vegetables. Now add as much water as required to make the consistency you like. 

For the rice I cooked basmati and mix wild red rice for a difference in texture and colour. 

Whilst the rice is cooking (often takes 8-10 mins depending on what technique your use to) add the salmon chunks. Turn down the heat to a light simmer and occasionally turned the salmon to cook the tops and sides.  

Once the salmon is cooked and the insides are delicate take the curry off the heat and spoon up!

I cooked some garlic Naan bread to go with this meal. Although Naan is traditionally cooked with Indian curries rather than thai, I prefer having a bread than crackers as it absorbs the juices much better. The garlic and coriander flavours in the bread won't clash with this curry either. I also mixed cucumber chunks with some low fat greek yogurt to accompany the curry incase it was too hot (I'm a bit of a whimp when it comes to too much chilli!) 

As it was Christmas when I cooked this up, we were still on the bubbles. Surprisingly, it accompanied the meal very well!