This is an adaption from Yotam Ottolenghi’s Purple Sprouting Broccoli with Rice Noodles Recipe. Kind of hard to find purple sprouting broccoli in these parts, it turns out. So I used plain old less-sprouted green broccoli. It worked fine. Actually, the green curry sauce is the real winner. It’s amazing, and I’ve used it since with shrimp, with green beans, with plain noodles, and I’d use it in the future with chicken or anything else you’d cook into a Thai green curry. It’s a blend-and-go type sauce, so it comes together quickly. You’ll never buy that Thai spice paste again in the grocery store.
It’s a combination of ginger (or galangal), green chilies (cayenne or jalapeno), lemongrass (optional), garlic, 1/2 a shallot, freshly ground coriander and cumin seeds (KEY!), grated zest and juice of one lime (also optional if you have dried lime leaves as I do. Not optional if you don’t), a bunch of cilantro including stalks (you can add extra stalks if you don’t have lemongrass), and a little oil to bind it all (you can also use water or stock). Just blend the whole thing in a blender or food processor.
I really can’t give this entire recipe since it alone merits buying the book, but you basically cook some red onion (or regular yellow onion, or extra shallots) in a little oil then add the spice paste, and cook for a few minutes before adding a little sugar, 7 kaffir lime leaves(!), a little salt and almost an entire can of coconut milk. Simmer it for 5 minutes and voila. So easy.
Then just blanch the broccoli (boiling water for 2 minutes than drain and rinse in cold water) and soften the rice noodles according to the package (usually boiling them for 4 minutes does the trick – then drain and rinse under hot water and drain again). Toss the rice noodles with a few tablespoons of sesame oil if you feel like it (so very much optional, and I discourage it actually…I like the sweetness of the coconut milk more than the savouriness of the sesame), some lime juice and some salt.
Then top the noodles with the broccoli and drizzle with the green curry. Garnish with cilantro and a little more lime juice if you want. I think all that drizzling is overrated. I’d just serve the sauce warm on the side so you get as much flavour in each bite as possible. the sauce gets diluted by the rice noodles. It’s incredible with the sweet broccoli, though, and as it’s so high in fat, you don’t want to be guzzling it back and wasting it. Everything delicious in moderation?
Buy this book and make this beautiful curry sauce!
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